thegoodfellas/blogset-br huggingface dataset:
creates jobs both in Africa and in the United States because it allows for increased export products that are produced in your countries that are allowed into the U.S. duty-free. And so it does create jobs. But ultimately what will create jobs in Africa is investments in Africa, more companies creating opportunities for jobs, better education for young people so that they are qualified for the many job opportunities that will open up. The situation in Nigeria exists across the continent, where you have populations that are very, very young, and they need to be supported.We have an initiative called the Young African Leaders Initiative, or the Washington Mandela Fellowship Program, where over the past two years weve brought 500 a year young people across the continent. Next year we will be bringing 1,000. They do a six-week leadership program at a major university in the United States and then they have a one-week summit in Washington in which President Obama and senior leaders across the U.S. Government participate. The first year of this program, when we were only choosing 500, we had 50,000 completed applications. There is intense desire, there is intense hunger on the continent of Africa by young people to get the tools that they need to be successful in the future. So this is a challenge for African governments. It is a challenge for them to figure out how they engage with their young people, how they support their young people, and what tools they give to them so that they are able to be successful in the future. Some countries have raised questions about the Young African Leaders Initiative. I had one country suggest to us that we were brainwashing Africas young. And my response to that is you should not be worried about the U.S. brainwashing your young; you should be worried about Boko Haram brainwashing your young, you should be worried about al-Shabaab brainwashing your young, you should be worried about ISIL brainwashing your young.What were trying to do is give them the tools so that they can be successful in the future, they can hone the leadership skills they already have to contribute to their governments. And what weve seen so far with the 1,000 who have gone through this program is they will be great in the future, whether they are great teachers, university professors, businesspeople, politicians. Whatever field of endeavor theyre involved in, theyre going to be good. And weve given them just a little bit more in terms of leadership tools to sharpen their skills to help them be successful in the future.QUESTION: Thank you.QUESTION: Do you know if any private sector initiative, for instance, that could facilitate funding for the private sector in Africa that are trying to create employment for these because the programs for the most part on the U.S. from the U.S. side is government government initiatives. But we feel that private sector is actually more powerful or maybe just as powerful.ASSISTANT SECRETARY THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Well, we certainly work very closely with the private sector, and in terms
of promoting the capacity of businesses in Africa when I was in Nigeria, I visited a company that was being run by a young woman that produced animal feed, and she had been a Young African Leader, a Mandela Washington Fellow, and her she got a small grant from the African Development Foundation, used that grant to improve the packaging for her products, and her products are competing with products that are coming from overseas. And shes doubled the number of employees in a very short, short period of time.So sometimes it just is small investments. Similar to what is being done by the African Development Foundation, USAID supports capacity building for small companies. We have trade hubs that are in Ghana and in Kenya that support businesses that want to do business with the United States. So there are many opportunities there, but theres the challenges are huge and its going to take a lot more effort on all of our parts.QUESTION: Thank you.MODERATOR: We only have time for a couple of questions, so maybe Kevin and then we want to give PK a chance.QUESTION: Okay, thanks a lot. So Ill combine two into one, and they both relate to President Obamas initiative regarding peacekeeping the other day. So and the British prime minister announced that theyre going to send troops to Somalia and Sudan. Would the United States consider doing that? Specifically also, theres always complaints by AMISOM and others that they lack airpower especially to combat Shabaab. The United States has engaged with airpower in Somalia, but could you do more? Could you supply helicopters, transport planes? And the same in the same vein, with South Sudan, would the United States consider sending peacekeeping troops to South Sudan?ASSISTANT SECRETARY THOMAS-GREENFIELD: I think on the to answer your last question first, it is not something that we normally do, but we do support peacekeeping efforts quite extensively. Were the largest funder of peacekeeping. And through our Africa training initiative, weve trained more than 250,000 African peacekeepers and we will continue those efforts to train. In addition to training them, we equip them. And we have provided them with airpower, and were looking at how we can provide additional enablers such as air to Ugandan and Kenyan and Ethiopian troops in Somalia. Were working very, very closely with the AMISOM troops in Somalia in terms of helping to build up the capacity of the Somali national army. So were there as well, working to support the efforts of peacekeeping. We were very pleased by the results of the peacekeeping conference. There were huge commitments that were made. The next step is to get those commitments honored. But again, I think this was responded to in a very serious way. And we look forward to working with these governments, particularly for myself on the continent of Africa, where weve had African countries that have very, very graciously and generously contributed to peacekeeping. QUESTION: But the United States would not send troops to South Sudan?ASSISTANT SECRETARY THOMAS-GREENFIELD: I its not something that Im
aware that we have considered. But I certainly know that we will support the efforts. QUESTION: Id like to ask something regarding health in Africa. Im from Ghana. Ebola never got to Ghana thankfully. And one of the things that Ebola exposed was the health structures in Africa. Im sure youre aware of this. In the aftermath of Ebola, if I could say that there still nothing has been done I can speak for Ghana. And I know that the U.S. is a major contributor in terms of resources and personnel to the health systems in Africa. Do you ever get tired that you do all these things and African governments dont respond (laughter) and do the updates? I mean, are you impressing on them to do something actually on the ground?ASSISTANT SECRETARY THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Yeah. I never get tired. (Laughter.) No, let me be clear. We have worked with governments, and a lot has been done. We have signed an agreement with the African Union to help them to develop a center for disease control, an African center for disease control. CBC has also worked with African governments to support their efforts to address responses to infectious diseases. And in the case of Nigeria, where we did have Ebola cases, the Nigerians were able to control this because they had an effective CBC-like operation that they had worked over many years to develop. And were working with Ghana as well on developing that capacity.Still, theres tremendous additional effort that will be required in terms of building Africas health infrastructure. What Ebola showed us is that infrastructure is extraordinarily fragile and any infectious disease that occurs on the continent can really force a total collapse. And we saw that collapse take place in the three Ebola countries. So we are more than engaged on trying to address these issues across the continent, because you cant do it just in one country. You have to work in all the countries to ensure that any type of infectious disease doesnt go doesnt cross borders, because they dont recognize borders. And we certainly saw that in the case of Ebola.But weve had Ebola-like diseases in Central Africa for many, many years, and its been kept under wraps. So there are there is some progress being made, but I agree with you: A lot more needs to be done. But we cant get tired, because if we get tired, we will be defeated. And Im not prepared and I don't think our Center for Disease Control that is intensely engaged in this that any of us are prepared to declare defeat at this point. MODERATOR: I understand the Assistant Secretary is on a really tight schedule and Ive been asked to go ahead and end the briefing. Thank you so much for coming. Were so happy to have you, and its been a wonderful discussion.ASSISTANT SECRETARY THOMAS-GREENFIELD: Thank you very much. And thanks to all of you. # # #WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2015, 2:00 P.M. EDTNEW YORK FOREIGN PRESS CENTER, 799 UNITED NATIONS PLAZA, 10TH FLOOR
MODERATOR: Well, welcome, everybody, on this rainy day. Im glad you guys could come out to this. So today we have Special Envoy Jonathan Winer Special Envoy for Libya I believe thats the title. We had a very important meeting today at the UN to talk about moving forward on the political process there, and hell provide an update on that and where we are and what can we expect moving forward. This is a small group. Were going to go ahead and do this on the record. So with that, Ill hand it over. And please, if you ask a question, please state your name and who youre affiliated with, please. Thank you.MR WINER: Hi. Im Jonathan Winer. Im the United States Special Envoy to Libya, and perhaps I can begin by trying to describe where I think things are and why, where they may be heading, what our policy is. You should feel free to ask me any question when Ive stopped speaking, and if Im going off the (inaudible) feel free to interrupt me. Thats all right too. The current Libyan governments, which were formed more or less in the period of June to August of last year, 2014, are not capable of delivering services to the Libyan people. They have not succeeded in acting as governments, and they spent most of their existence fighting with one another over who was legitimate and who was not. They both have declining legitimacy, both internationally and domestically. And the UN peace process, which has been underway under the current UN SRSG Bernardino Leon, who began his mission in the beginning of actually it was the end of September, actually 2014. His term is nearing its close and he is trying to, as he concludes his term, bring the parties into a deal which would re-establish a unitary government a united government back in Tripoli, which everyone agrees is Libyas capital. And the fact is that nothing can really function very well without Tripoli being Libyas capital, because the governmental infrastructure of Libya is weak under the best of circumstances, and you take it out of a Tripoli-centric functioning and it cant function at all.There are now central banks, two Libyan claimants for control of Libyan investment authority, two claimants for a national oil company, double sets of ministers on practically everything, competing ministries of foreign affairs in terms of ambassadors being appointed by one side or the other side, two presidents, two prime ministers, and a very large number legislators in both bodies. It doesnt work. Benghazi has been engulfed in an ongoing conflict now for 15 months, which has destroyed substantial portions of the city. Sirte has been taken over by Daesh. Derna was taken over by Daesh but then developed antibodies, and Libyan members of Ansar al-Sharia kicked Daesh out only a few months after embracing it.Youve got the migrant crisis into Europe through Libya, which is causing generous amounts of money to be generated for criminal gangs who, in turn, like to keep the money flows going and
thus insidiously further build their capacities and weaken governmental structures.Everyone says it cant go on like this. The Libyan public doesnt want it to go on like this, its pretty clear from polling. The majority of the legislative bodies in the House of Representatives in Tobruk and in the GNC in Tripoli believe it cant go on like this and are ready to embrace a deal.Everybodys sick of it, and at some point the situation, which is already pretty terrible, becomes intolerable as Libya continues to eat its seed corn, consume its inherited capital, and the money starts to run out. I would note that Daesh did take over the central banks offices in Sirte about three weeks ago. It got away with some millions of dollars. Its good that it wasnt hundreds of millions, but it was millions. And its efforts to build that geographic space in that area are threatening to Misrata, which is the city most in its proximity. The Misratans would very much like to fight back, but its hard to fight back while youre also having to watch your back against the political forces in the context of ongoing civil division. So the Misratans have been very, very central to the changed appetite for a political accommodation, a political deal. There were important Misratan elements as part of Libya Dawn formed after Operation Dignity. It was formed by Hafter. And at this point, the Misratans, by and large, very much want to be part of the deal and to help deliver a deal.The text that has been negotiated by the Libyans, brokered by Bernardino Leon, is, as far as Leon is concerned, final. It is final as far as the United States is concerned. Its final so far as the major European countries involved in Libya are concerned. Its final as far as the regional players are concerned. Its that process is done. Whats going to happen next is this a process needs to be undergone very rapidly two days, three days, four days. There is at most less than three weeks until the house by all accounts loses its current legitimacy; its current authorities run out on October 21st. So there is a process that needs to take place for agreement on five names for a new government a prime minister, two deputy prime ministers, and two cabinet positions which become part of something called the presidency council, which collectively make all the decisions pretty much for the new government. So its envisioned that Bernardino Leon will be able to, by talking seriatim to all of the Libyan delegates whove been participating in the process thats taken place in Skhirat and Morocco over the past year, mostly in Skhirat, sometimes in Geneva, that they will say okay, this the right person for prime minister, we can live all of us can live with this person. This is the right combination for deputy prime minister, the right combination for the other two. And by looking at a package of five people they can say yeah, we like
that this person, were not thrilled with that person but we can live with him. So that you have a total package that works for Libya that says this is a group of Libyans who represent enough of us that we will all feel reasonably safe and give them our authority. So the idea is to get that done over the next few days and to have Bernardino Leon fill in Annex 2, which is where these five names would go theres a place for it in the actual political agreement in the second annex and then say, Here, House of Representatives in Tobruk, here GNC in Tripoli, vote yes up or down. And if they vote for it, the new government is formed. If they dont for it, you could still have a situation in which enough Libyan constituencies ultimately come together to provide a basis for governance, but thats less clear. Were seeing growing momentum for it. Representatives from both the GNC and the House of Representatives have in New York today committed themselves to trying to get from here to there. Weve seen this process evolve where theyve gotten closer and closer and closer, and then they go back to their home cities. And there are elements in both cities who have not wanted a deal and who basically tend to make demands which are not answerable, and theyre obstacles to a deal. The goal is to reduce that to the absolute minimum, to the smallest number, and find a majority, indeed a supermajority, to go ahead. Reports that we have had from discussions within the house and discussions within the GNC are that somewhere between two-thirds and to five-sixths of the representatives are in support of an agreement, depending on how far along you are in the process. Its gone more or less from two-thirds to five-sixths over the last three months. We get pretty detailed vote counts, and its quite clear to us that the people who dont want to deal are in the absolute minority. That said, when the negotiating team of the GNC left Tripoli last week to prepare to come to New York it might even have been this week, a few days ago there were people who tried to prevent them from getting on planes. The GNC negotiators are tough GNC members. They are not pushovers. They are not no one would call them soft on the other side. They are tough, well-regarded people within their caucus, within their body, their institution. Yet there were still people who tried to intimidate them and prevent them from leaving. Weve seen the same phenomenon from time to time in the House of Representatives. And so this is going to be a rocky road to success if we get there. Libya needs to get there and the Libyans need now to move ahead, not to take any more time. And if you listened to the discussion or heard about the discussion today at the UN, the message from every country that spoke, without exception, was no
more negotiations, no delay, now, because legitimacy is declining in the absence of a deal.So what about security? The question of security is a multifaceted question, but the first issue on security is security in Tripoli. Everyone agrees Tripoli has to be the seat of the government, not only for historical and affectional or emotional reasons but because physically thats the way the ministries are constructed. And the IT and administrative systems in Libya are no so strong that you can just plug and play from anywhere. It doesnt work. The various militias that control various parts of Tripoli need to participate in security discussions in the next few weeks. Those have been slow. The security discussions have not gone at the speed that lots of people have wanted, both inside Libya and outside Libya, but theres one good reason for it in addition to any number of bad reasons one could come up with. A bad reason is the person is waiting till the last minute to extract whatever they can would be a bad reason. A person who never wants to share power, is going to stop anyone from coming back, would be another bad reason. Those bad reasons may Im a criminal group, I dont want more people to oppose me, I want to just do my criminal things would be a third bad reason. But the main good reason or legitimate reason is until there is a political deal, until theres a political agreement, its hard to expect security forces to come aboard for discussions with one another on solutions. This is not a security problem first and foremost, though there are massive security problems. It is in the first instance a political problem in which the various political components of society at play politically in Libya need to come together. And thats been the process in Morocco over this period now of eight or nine nine months, really, since we started in Skhirat, something like that nine months, anyway, since we started Geneva, which were seeing in Skhirat.So thats basically where we are. The delegates are going to back to Skhirat immediately tomorrow and start discussing names of the quintet, quintropod, whatever the correct name is for five people Pentium I guess thats copyrighted for the five people who would control the country, be responsible for running the government. Then, if they can come to that and Bernardino was able to find five names which are in accord with the independent delegates as well as the house and the GNC, it then goes back to those two bodies for approval as the second annex of an entire integrated text. So thats where things are.MODERATOR: All right. Well take your questions.MR WINER: I actually had a couple things. The UK, the U.S., France, Italy, and other countries made it clear to the Libyans that we will all be involved and support Libya rebuilding if they form a government of national unity; and that if they fail to do so, not only would that assistance not be forthcoming, but
theyre going to be running on fumes and then those fumes are going to even the fumes are going to run out.QUESTION: Can I ask a quick question? In his when President Obama spoke on Monday, he acknowledged that the international community had not done enough after Qadhafi was overthrown to help nation building, I guess one would call it, or security assistance in country in Libya. What it was interesting that he made that acknowledgement. What motivated him? What lessons have you learned and what would you do differently now should the Libyans succeed in forming a government? Because he seemed to be saying it wasnt handled right the first time, and that raises the question of whats going how different is it going to be this time?MR WINER: Well, when something fails as much as Libya has failed after such a bright moment when people were really excited about throwing off the chains of 42 years of being enslaved or shackled by Qadhafis megalomania and capriciousness, you say, Well, we must have done something wrong. However, the Libyans really did not want a variety of kinds of international help. I was personally involved in trying to get the Libyans to move ahead with general purpose force agreement with the United States, never could get them to sign a peace of paper. When they finally signed the peace of paper, couldnt get them to pay for their share.When it came to military training, the United States tried to do various types of training missions. They all went awry in different ways due to the Libyans not doing what they should be doing. The Italians had a bad experience, the Turks had a bad experience, the Brits had a bad experience, the French had a bad experience with police. I cant find a country that engaged with Libya in the period of 2012 to 2014 that was successful.QUESTION: So then what is the point the President was making if because he seemed to be saying that it wasnt enough had not been done, and you seem to be saying that it wasnt possible to do anything. So what are you planning to do thats going to build on these lessons? Or is it or I just dont understand what the President was saying and where youre going with it.MR WINER: I really cant speculate about what was in the Presidents mind on what he had to say, because its not something that I was involved in during the preparation of his materials or so I dont know where that came from. I cant speculate --QUESTION: So how what precisely will you do to help this new government should it ever manage to coalesce?MR WINER: Sure. They need public financial administration so that they can take advantage of their resources in ways to deliver services effectively. If youve ever gotten an email from a Libyan, I can tell you it didnt have a Libya suffix at the end. They dont have electronic recordkeeping systems that are systemic. Theyve got some sophistication at the