Please note this version of the afternoon program conversation has been transcribed from a taped version. Instances where comments were found to be inaudible are noted in the text.

Nira Yuval-Davis : I'm Nira Yuval-Davis , one of those fortunate to be a fellow in the Human Security Program of NCRW. And thank you very much for your presentations. Obviously, both of them were wonderful. But at the same time I want to make quick comments on the paradoxes that Allison was talking about.

First of all, about the paradox of many powerful women, and yet so many women in poverty and lack of power. I grew up in a country where Golda Meir was the Prime Minister. And I lived in a country where Margaret Thatcher was a Prime Minister.

Alison Bernstein: So much for women in power.

Nira Yuval-Davis : Exactly. But it is time that the feminist movement have stopped just to talk about women and power, but talks about what kind of women in power and differentiate between identities, locations and values. And let's talk about feminists in power. And a particular kind of feminist who see their feminism as part of their overall emancipatory program, and not just benefits for women as women.

And yet, those who are constructed now as the bigger danger for national security everywhere, and any attempts to bring refugees to western countries become now such a criminalized and impossible act.

And I think that a lot of it is the fact that the right wing have connected issues of security and fear of security to issues of nationalism and belonging in general. While the left has disregarded the worries about security and the worries about belonging and nationalism.

And therefore, I would beg to disagree with you and say, we have to not to deal with issues of security. This is why I was attracted to this program about human security and the attempt to try and deal with issues of security, but in a way in which feminists and those who deal with emancipatory projects can embrace, rather than just reject. Thank you.

Adaora Udoji: Which one of you wants to respond first? Comment?

Those examples, unfortunately, in terms of political leaders are abundant in my own continent. So there is nothing holy about women. There is nothing that makes us necessarily better beings than men. But what one hopes is that because of our particular experiences, our particular perspective and the fact that we came in from behind -- we would have learned something.

And that many of us came to the things we are doing because we believe in precisely what you are talking about. But as I said, this is a risky business and it is very brutal. And so, it is not surprising that women who rise in power end up also brutalizing because the only way they feel they can stay there is to play the men's game. And so I don't think this is an issue which we could just simply blame those individual women.

I think we need to examine what is it that we need to be doing to support those women in power or who have the potential for leadership so that they cannot lose that aspect of wanting to be bigger than just the person; wanting to care more than just caring about being in power. And want to make a difference.

So again, we must examine -- have we really internalized this oppression so much that we can't dare see one of our own succeed? So there is an issue there that we need to examine.

Back to your question on security. I don't think anyone is suggesting that we move away from security. I think what we are suggesting is that we must not be seduced by the focus on security with the promise of certainty, which is not possible. And so, the capture by the right. that you are talking about, the security issue . . . unfortunately, I happen to be a non-voter in your country and I'm not going to say too much about that.

But I am amazed at how much of a focus this is in this country, when I know that you are the richest country in the world. And yet, you've got people sleeping on the streets. You've got children who are in schools that many people in the developing world would not believe those schools belong to your country.

And so I think the reason why I worry about the security story is that it's kind of now become the dominant thing, and people are not looking at -- what are the other social issues? And so, this is where I think you, as women in this election, we need to hear different questions being asked.

And so far, I haven't heard them.

Alison Bernstein: I would support everything Mamphela said want to be clear too that I don't think that progressives should abandon the concept of security. But I think we need to be critical in our interrogation of it, in the way that Mamphela has talked about. I'm so old-fashioned, I think of words like "social protection" and "welfare state." And words that meant something . . . I should have been a New Deal baby. That's the truth of it.

I think that there is an important agenda around social protection, the welfare state. Even in the developed world, in the G-8, the United States is at the bottom by any measure, in the way in which our policies make more vulnerable and create despair among the poor.

There is just no way of getting around that. I wanted to say one thing -- I meant to say something about Mamphela being so diplomatic and tactful. Do you remember in her remarks in which she said -- 190 countries around the world have passed CEDAW. But she didn't say one of the missing countries was the United States.

(applause)

Now, Kyoto is another. But even if you stick with some of the ones that come nearest and dearest to our political project, there is absolutely no excuse for that. Where does John Kerry sit with that? I hope I know the answer to that. But people are worried about the gender vote, in both parties.

Adaora Udoji: Whether it's men or women . . . it's mostly men most of the time who are in positions of power . . . from both of your perspectives, how do you put these issues on the agenda? I remember very clearly, when I was thinking of coming to do this panel, one day looking at the Financial Times when I was living in London, and there was such an outroar a couple of years ago when the U.S. raised steel tariffs. It went on for months. There were articles about it for months. It was on television everywhere in Europe. The Europeans were very upset about the U.S. raising tariffs.

The exact same period of time, there was a mass explosion of the sex slavery industry. Girls and young women being taken, particularly from West Africa but also from Eastern Europe because as the borders have come down it's a lot easier to move people around.

And there was just no outroar about that. There didn't seem to be any reaction. They were very startling numbers and startling pictures. We saw some of these women in various, they were uncovering smuggling rings, so we saw some of these. We heard from some of these women.

And it was just interesting how the reaction . . . and obviously, that's not a perfect analogy, but it's something I had a very clear memory of. How do we get some of these issues on the agenda? What does the World Bank do? How do you think you could contribute? Foundations -- how do they contribute? And what can the rest of us do?

Mamphela Ramphele: Certainly, the agenda in terms of what gets published, what gets aired on television, on the radio and what is regarded as a political issue -- is really what it is about. And I think that when we talk about -- yes, we have made gains but we still have a long way to go -- we are talking about agenda-setting.

And talking about having access to the resources to not just set the agenda but keep it there. We were able to do that in the feminist movement in the '60s and '70s because we realized that even though we don't own the newspapers, we made sure the newspapers took notice of us.

And I think now there is a kind of individualism, so you watch a story on these women or children being trafficked -- well, too bad. You go home and you get on with your life.

I think that we have become very tolerant of inequity in our societies. And we are talking about -- what can the World Bank do? For myself, I have been asked by Kofi Annan to co-chair a Global Commission on International Migration. And one of the areas we are going to be looking at is precisely this.

And the funny thing, going back to your question about refugees being seen as a problem of security -- refugees are only 8 percent of the people who move in the world. There is an estimate of something of the order of 175 million migrants, of whom only 8 percent are refugees.

And to have refugees turned back, as we witnessed from some country a few weeks ago, is something that is unbelievable because the Geneva Convention is very clear. And those people could not have posed a security threat to anyone; they were seeking refuge.

But that's the kind of society we have become as a global community. And so, I think that the issue is really about creating the spaces. And those of us who are fortunate to be in positions where we are, and you will be pleased to know that the World Bank has started a new program of looking at migration. They have been looking the other way for a long time.

And now, under the pressure of Jim Wolfensohn and the president, and of course, this gap that was given by my being named co-chair of this global commission, we have now elaborated a problem which is going to help us to understand the dynamics of migration more properly.

There are huge data gaps. There are huge gaps in terms of the normative[?] free world to govern migration. There are huge gaps in terms of the institutional free world. In the international community, there is not one organization that is charged with the governance of migration, except for the Commission on Refugees.

So imagine, of all the 175 million people who are moving, 8 percent are refugees. Those are the only people who have got a dedicated institution. The rest -- the children who are being trafficked, the women who are migrating in search of livelihood and men who are migrating -- are unprotected.

There are covenants, there are all sorts of treaties, but there is nobody who is actually monitoring and making sure that there is enforcement of those treaties. So we need to do something about it and that's what the Commission will do.

And for many of us in the wake of 9/11 and the Iraqi war, some of the best coverage was coming from the BBC. And it was being carried locally in New York, by WLIW. Imagine -- the fact that somehow we couldn't keep the BBC on the air in the United States because one corporate sponsor was bowing out.

So a number of foundations got together and did a quick, what we call "bridge grant." They are still looking. Lynn, I don't know if Gordon has talked about this, but they are still looking for a corporate sponsor. Philanthropy cannot put out that kind of money year in and year out.

But this is an example -- 92 percent of all Americans get their news from television. And just because we have more . . .

Adaora Udoji: What's wrong with that?

(laughter)

And this BBC example is a good one because there is an example where -- and I really give kudos to Rockefeller -- where the desire to make sure that something as important as BBC News doesn't disappear, was responded to rather quickly. And one of the things foundations can do that the World Bank can't do as easily is -- I know this sounds counter-intuitive -- respond quickly.

(laughter)

Adaora Udoji: I'll just point into the sea of hands. In the blue?

Carolyn Eliot: I'm Carolyn Eliot from the University of Vermont and also the Fulbright program at this point. I'd like to try out an observation about priorities and agenda setting and see if you agree. I think, as we look at the situation in the world at this point, even for people on the more left or progressive side of things, have fallen into the trap of thinking -- nuclear war looks so terrible, the Iraq war looks so terrible that women's issues somehow don't seem that important, and so we've got to fight the bigger issues first . . . which is the trap that women fell into in marxist movements and so forth, historically.

I wonder if that isn't part of the problem. Not just everybody getting more selfish because we're getting more mobile, but that there's a political issue here and just where we want to put our priorities.

Adaora Udoji: Thank you. We'll take a couple in a row because these women are just anxious to answer the questions.

Ronke Oyewumi: I am Ronke Oyeuwumi and I am in the same Human Security program. I am a fellow at the National Council for Research on Women. And I just have a few comments. The first one is -- the whole idea, when we talk about power, we keep talking about the game that men play. I wonder whether we should start talking about the game that people in power play.

Whatever they may be genderwise or racewise or whatever-wise, we need to focus on the nature of power and indeed what happens to people in power. I am also in the Human Security program and one of the biggest problems I have with the concept of human security is the idea that it can be deployed across the globe in the same way. As an African, it seems to me that in African now . . . especially in West Africa, because we have that phenomenon of failed states. States that are unresponsive to their population.

I beg to disagree because I really would want you to comment on this. Because when we talk about private sector-led, especially from the perspective, from the vantage point of Africa, I want us to deconstruct that private sector. That private sector is usually external.

So when we talk about private sector-led in New York -- well, the guy down the road is an American. For us, it's not that. It begins to look again like colonization and recolonization.

(applause)

Number Two -- Dr. Ramphele, you qualified your private sector-led . . . and I can see you're feeling the heat . . by sort of saying, all things being equal. But we know that all things are never equal. You talked about the state providing the conceptual framework, the regulation. Our states, by and large, are incapacitated. They are failing. They don't even exit. Corporations zoom in and zoom out as they like.

And so, we cannot just say -- well, the state will do this. In Africa, and much of Africa, the state is not doing that. And so, given what we have on the ground, I would want you to respond again to that question.

(laughter)

Adaora Udoji: I'm going to plead and beg -- please make them brief because we will never get to all of these sea of hands that are out here.

Blanche Weisen Cook: I'm so glad for that question because it is part of the question that I wanted to ask. I really think, as we look at the future, what we are looking at are water wars and oil wars and resource wars. And so, the conversation . . . who am I? I'm Blanche Weisen Cook. John Jay College, the Graduate Center, I'm very proud to say, the City University of New York and a member of NCRW, among other things.

But we are looking at water wars and we are looking at oil wars. And my question, which is very specific, are you implying now that the World Bank, which historically required structural changes in order to invest in states. Structural changes that resulted in the privatization of water.

Are you saying that the World Bank has now changed and is reformed and we can look at a partnership between welfare states and water, resources? I would really like to know that.

Adaora Udoji: Okay, which one of you? Dr. Ramphele?

They are two different things. Being a leader is a calling. It's the sort of thing that you do because you want to accomplish something, you want to make a difference. Whereas being in power is a state. And we have seen people who are power, they want to remain in power.

And so, I think we need time to unpack this concept. But I think I should just go straight to the issue of the private sector because that's obviously the one that is creating a lot of heat.

I grew up with a utopian view of the world. That you have welfare states that look after their people. And during the time that we grew up, many -- including Europe and even in this country -- a lot of things were done by governments. It so happens that many countries, without the World Bank incidentally, I'll give you an example of Finland.

It used to be a paper and pulp industrial society. They were poor; poor as church mice. They were the poorest in the Scandinavian continent. And the reason was that they were relying on natural resources. So you're right to talk about water wars and oil wars.

Now, take Norway for example. Norway compared to Nigeria. Norway has got oil like Nigeria has oil. But what Norway has done is to have a societal framework in which the oil wealth is exploited by the private sector, but under a framework where the profits are put away, not to be touched by this or even the next generation, but by the next generation -- because they know that this is a (inaudible) industry which is finite.

So in that way, they minimize the corrupting influence of oil. Now, that doesn't make the Norwegians go and take the government's resources, to get civil servants to go and try to exploit oil. They are not capable of doing that. The level of resources that are needed to invest in a good oil industry that's clean, that's not having all sorts of pollution -- it's really quite extensive.

I appreciate the importance of governments having -- not appreciate -- I insist that there has to be that environment, in which the government creates an environment not just for the private sector to come in, but to make sure that they involve the framework in which they are coming. It's a responsible one.

They are held accountable for sustainable environmental standards to make sure that not only this generation, but future generations are not disadvantaged. Take the example of the water wars that you are talking about. Has the World Bank changed? Definitely. And I will give you an example.

The Nile Basin is an area where there will be a water war sooner rather than later. And those states are not going to sit and individually decide that, let's come together and work this out. But because you can look at it from outside, you can see that this thing is not going to hang together.

So through our Africa regional program, we are bringing those states together to really look at it. Don't look at this Nile River thing to be there forever; we've got a find a way in which we manage the water resources as a commonwealth between not just within a given society, but within the region.

The example of Finland that I was just giving you. Finland borrowed money from the World Bank, but also asked for help -- what works in other societies that have got our problem? And the advice they were given is encapsulated in those two pillars that I was giving you.

So then you have, of course at the same time, got to make sure you invest in your people so that, not only are they the engines of development, but they are feeling good in themselves. Where is Finland today? It's the home of Nokia.

Nokia was not created by the Finnish government. I'm sorry, it was the private sector. But the government created an environment in which Nokia could operate for the benefit of Finland and so on. I take your point. Africa doesn't have the same indigenous resources in terms of private sector development.

It's not as if there are no entrepreneurs in Africa . It's because the African governments don't understand the importance of developing entrepreneurs. They would rather have Shell and BP coming from outside because then they can cut deals which are non-transparent and so on.

So it's not a question of -- let's not have the private sector. It's a question of -- how does Africa develop itself in a way that is responsible? I'm very encouraged with the new partnership for Africa 's development. African leaders themselves have now woken up to the fact that they've got to get their act together to get a good governance environment.

But what do they say? They want private sector investment, not just outside investors. But domestic investors should be the leaders in investments. Then you have the domestic and the multinationals working together to grow the economy.

If Africa doesn't develop its private sector, Africa is going to disappear beneath the two oceans around it. I'm afraid to say so. There isn't enough in the line of natural resources for us to sustain ourselves without a private sector.

The World Bank used to have this very rigid view. It used to be called, it still is called The Washington Consensus. And I found out the other day, quite by accident, that in fact this happened to have been a seminal discussion in which some academic was looking at Latin America at the time, in the early '90s.

Latin American economies at the time had these big state-owned enterprises and many of them were in debt. And many of them had huge inequalities. And what they came up with was an approach to help those countries. But of course, as it happens with economists, the little experiment here multiplied the whole world. There is something called, what? The Economic Man -- something like that.

Alison Bernstein: It's not my job to defend the World Bank, but I will say that Jim Wolfensohn is not the only person who had helped to reform the World Bank. The person sitting to my right has helped to reform the World Bank. And I think it's very important, all of us who work in large bureaucratic organizations that aren't always right, that don't always do the right thing, that sometimes get it wrong -- have to be prepared to say that we're also in the business of reforming them, not discarding them.

And at least for me, one of the most interesting things about the World Bank now is that it's coming under fire in part because the global social movements that have the infrastructure and the technology to have this worldwide conversation, have it because, in part, the World Bank helped to build the infrastructure.

Sandra Morgen: Sandy Morgen, from the Center for Study of Women and Society, University of Oregon . We've spent a lot of time deconstructing security. We talk about the private sector like it's one thing, but there is a huge difference between the entrepreneurs you were talking about on the corner and the transnational corporations.

And I think that all of us that are up in arms about the term "private sector-led development" would have a very different perspective if we weren't primarily thinking about those large transnationals which have now controlled a vast portion of the economic activity and the neo-liberal models that have essentially evolved to give them license.

So let's talk about private sector-led development in an honest way, and I'm not saying you aren't honest. I truly did not mean that.

(laughter)

No, because I actually think a lot of the points that you're making about small-scale private development . . . I mean, I've spent time in Vietnam . I know exactly what you're talking about. But we sit here, looking at our huge corporations which are a big chunk of the problem worldwide, we shouldn't just be critiquing the World Bank. We have some responsibility for reining in our corporations which we are completely and utterly unable to do.

And if we are unable to do that here, I'm not sure how it's going to be done elsewhere because we have a number of resources. So I just guess that's the deconstruction I'd be interested in us pursuing.

Adaora Udoji: I'll go to the back of the room because I know I've been negligent of you guys.

Ann Zill: I just want to make another brief point about security. I'm Ann Zill, I'm with the Women's Center for Ethics and Action in Maine . And I'm remembering that in 1973, late in the year when I was a founder of the Women's Campaign Fund to elect more women, there were two percent of elected officials who were female in this country.

We fast forward to today, I listen to the discussion of security and I think it's probably the singlemost important thing that women have to do today. Because to redefine security along the lines of human security and get it into the political process, that will take some of the toys away from the boys.

It will involve getting control over corporations. And none of this will even begin to happen until we have a critical mass of women in positions of elected authority, in positions in all of our large institutions and some of the small ones, in intellectual capacities, so that we can do this together. I think it's the third wave of the feminist movement.

Adaora Udoji: Let's go to the back, the last row?

Leanne Gross: My name is Leanne Gross and I'm with the Global Fund for Women, and thanks to both institutions for supporting our grass roots grantmaking directly to women on the ground in 160 countries. What I wanted to raise is a whole area today that I think has been missing from our conversation.

And the area I think in particular that we haven't addressed today is the rise of religious extremism. And its use of women as its prime targets. And I'm not talking only about Islam, although it does exist in Islam. But I'm also talking about, for example, in the Hindu faith the effect in India of huge rates of feticide. At one clinic, 7999 out of 8000 abortions were female fetuses.

So a tremendous patriarchal attitude towards women worldwide. That's just one example. Honor killings in Turkey and in Jordan. We are always supporting groups on the ground in these countries that are trying to overcome that kind of discrimination.

But in addition, let's bring it home and look at, earlier Dr. Ramphele mentioned 600,000 women a year, worldwide, are dying from abortion complications, much of which because UNFPA was cut off by this administration. This is about to happen here in this country, as well, which is why we also need to take action.

April 25 is the March for Women's Lives in Washington D.C. But what I'd like you to address, both speakers, is actually -- why has religious extremism increased? Both Christian fundamentalisms; some of it is Islamic. Jewish, Hindu and other faiths?

Alison Bernstein: When I started working at the Ford Foundation, so long ago it's sort of in dim memory, Ford was one of those "secular" institutions that basically didn't pay attention to religion as a force in modern society. And I have to say that one of the big mistakes we made then, which is being corrected now, is our ignorance of the importance of religion in people's lives, A), and B) -- our lack of understanding that religion can be a force for progressive change, as well as a force for deeply-retro change and conservatizing and traditional and fundamentalist attitudes, practices and behaviors.

So in 1996, when Susan Barrister became President of the Ford Foundation, she did something rather remarkable. She got permission from our trustees to set up a program on religion, society and culture. And sadly, we only had one fulltime person working in that field worldwide, but we have bits and pieces of other people working on that field as well.

This is a very new program for us. And I suppose you could say that it's come about in terms of the recognition that there are fundamentalisms of all kind around the world. And fundamentalism is not necessarily a bad thing until and if it really begins to disrespect and in fact, become intolerant of difference.

So for us, this new program which is new in Ford terms because we haven't worked on religion at all until the late '90s, is just rolling out. And I would say it's a good example of a foundation that was looking at its own work and wondering why we haven't been as effective in some parts of the world.

And I'll give you three examples of the kind of work that we are doing on religion. One is that we have programs in Indonesia that work in Islamic schools with girls around their own sense of their voice and their empowerment. If one of us tried to do that, forget it. One has to find the people within the tradition and within the culture, who are interested and re thinking and can find in the sacred texts ways to in fact build greater respect for women and their roles.

Another example -- and this is an important example in the United States -- is the work of Diana Eck[?] who is Professor of Comparative Religion at Harvard, who has developed a project called Common Ground where she looks at religious pluralism in the United States. And each of us has a favorite trivia factoid about her work, but the one that I like the best is that every ten days a mosque is built in the United States. Every ten days.

And there are more Muslims in the United States than Episcopalians. We are a much more multi-religious society than ever before, and trying to come to grips with that in a way that respects difference is really a very important project.

Last but not least, we work on other issues related to religion. I would have to say that one of my other heroines is Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, who heads a synagogue in New York which is really the biggest and perhaps the first synagogue for gay and lesbian rights. And she is building linkages and connections between her work and the views of traditional, and let's call it Orthodox Judaism with regard to gay rights and other civil rights organizations. Those are three kinds of examples.

And in the religious sphere, you are right in that those of us who are either radicals or social activists neglected religion as an important domain, as an important part of the cultural people. And so, it was occupied and it is occupied in many cultures -- by conservatives. And they can then twist the message, whether it is in the Jewish faith or the Muslim faith or Christian faith -- to suit their own political agendas.

And so, I think really, what we need to find a way of doing is to return to the source -- religion is part of being human. And it's got many expressions, but somehow when we are fundamentalists, there's only one way of doing it.

And I think that this challenges us as a global community to find ways of promoting pluralism in whatever form or state.

Alison Bernstein: May I make one retort here? Like everything else, fundamentalism is a word we throw around. And I agree entirely with Mamphela that the project is to find ways of examining and unearthing, in every religious tradition, those those streams that respect difference and pluralism.

For many people, their faith is a very, very personal and let's even call it, exceptional thing. I don't have an issue with that. It's when they want me to have it. That's the issue.

Adaora Udoji: Clearly, we can sit here all day and chat, chat, chat, but if you listen you can hear the bell ringing. It's five o'clock, and so we are going to close. Thank you all for coming. But I would be so remiss if I did not thank Linda and her staff who have worked so hard in getting us all here today and making sure that we had . . .
(applause)

Linda Basch (NCRW President): Thanks to all of you. I really want to thank this fabulous panel for raising a number of provocative questions, I think, for aiding our discussion of human security. For inspiring and challenging us all. I was going to say that, but I'm going to ask all of you to show your appreciation to this fabulous panel.

Thank you. We'll see you next year.