>> moving on to the environment. maryland is under and epa mandate. storm water, to clean up the chesapeake bay. we've taken a number of steps including the storm water management fee. what would be your administration's approach towards the epa mandate speak with here's the issue burt neuborne the chesapeake bay is our most valued asset and it's a treasure for not only maryland but the entire country to clean up the bay is going to be a top priority of the hogan administration and target different than this administration. rather than blaming farmers and waterman and the rain that falls on the roof of your house, we will take other actions. the 43% of all the sediment in the day comes down the river. it's the number one issue. it's been completely ignored for ages. we will push back to the federal government both the epa and army corps of engineers was responsible for dredging these sediments. will push back to make sure

pennsylvania and new york pay their fair share. that's one of the major problems with having clean up the bay. and to protecting our environment. the most important problem we've had is the o'malley-brown administration. it. this administration has rated $1.3 billion out of environmental trust fund. they took $460 million out of program open space. they took money out of the chesapeake restoration fund. they took money out of the chesapeake bay trust. when you buy the tags, they took the money out of there. $1.3 billion was raided in one of these trust funds. one thing we won't do, we won't raid the trust fund will try to replenish all the money and focus on the real problem in the bay and the so we will do in our administration. the rain tax is universally hated by most people in the state. that's the only solution they've

come up with. the rain that falls on your house, i can tell you i've been going from one end of the state to the other. people everywhere just are disgusted with that. that's not the only solution. we've got to do more. brown: larry, there you go again painting a distorted picture. maryland and the entire nation came through a great recession, except for education. no program didn't see or instead another with them every program so reduction in expenditures and, unfortunately, programs that protect the environment. larry you and i stand in two completely different places. i stand in the tradition of marylanders who first century's understand we have to take a balanced approach to protecting the environment. you stand somewhere upstream in the river pointing your finger at pennsylvania and new york, accusing them of not doing what you're unwilling to do here in maryland. we need a robust program to reduce the storm or that carries pollutants into the bay. we need to work with farmers,

the plowman working with fishermen, farmers to reduce runoff and we've done a great job. we've got work to do. we need to work with local governments on water management. we need to work with developers septics in developing. we need to continue the progress we're making on treatment plants. this is a balanced approach. this assumes the responsibility. why? because a vibrant chesapeake bay, and evironment, accounts for hundreds of businesses and tens of thousands of jobs in maryland. you can't be pro-business and not be pro-environment in maryland. whether it's the maritime operations at port of baltimore, the restaurants, the tourism industry relies on a clean bay. we can't look to new in pennsylvania to do what we can what you are not willing to do. >> mr. hogan. hogan: that all sounded good but a lot of it was nonsense. first of all i do believe in a

balanced approach. i'm not talking about just pushing everything off. i talked about the fact you robbed $1.3 billion out of environmental trust fund that we could have done a lot of great work in the bank had we not been the. that's what the priority should be, number one. you and back again and blamed on the national recession as if we are recovering better, that you cut in every department. you didn't cut. increase spending by $10 billion. that's more than 46 other states. when you go from 29 going to budget to a 39 billion, it's an increase. there wasn't any belt tightening. taxpayers who were struggling during the recession, they had to tighten their belts. they had to make tough decisions but you didn't to your decision was to raise 40 taxes in a row and crushed maryland families and small businesses. you're talking about a balanced approach to business and the environment. we've killed 8000 businesses, lost 200,000 jobs.

you can't make things up, can't talk about the past figures as if it didn't happen. most states in the country are recovering from we are not. we are 49th out of 50 states. >> moderator: thank you, mr. hogan. mr. brown, voters are concerned about the tone of this gubernatorial race. it's been called the most negative governors race in the country. diane asks why did it come to this? brown: i believe that campaigns are conversations with voters. about maryland future, conversations about records, how we build a better maryland. i also believe that voters ought to know where candidates stand on a wide range of issues but it's not for a candidate to say that this issue is important in this election and another one isn't. so that's why we've made the point in the brown-ulman administration to highlight mr. hogan's record on important issues, to ocean city but

marylanders ask me, they say where are you on public safety? more specifically the firearm safety protection act. of 2013. because mr. hogan is not talking about it. so we share with you mr. hogan's record but mr. hogan said and where the advertisements that communicate to voters, i don't support senate bill 281. what was senate bill 281? senate bill 281 banned assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. mr. hogan opposed it. senate bill 281 would've required a common sense background checks including fingerprinting and we fingerprint for over 130 reasons in maryland, we can do that before we sell a gun. mr. hogan opposed it. mr. hogan opposes 281 which is commonsense public safety measures from rome. he will tell you we should rely on a federal database. why should we rely on the federal government when we of

the tools to do it here? i think it's fair in campaign to present to voters and contrast on issues. i supported the firearm safety act of 2013. i will enforce it, funded enforcement and ohio people unlike mr. hogan who will -- >> moderator: thank you. mr. hogan. hogan: the question was about why the campaign is so negative and that we have one of the most negative campaigns in the country and i would agree with that. it certainly hasn't been coming from our side. the commercials we run for the most part have been very positive and focused only on the economic issues we think are important that we think most maryland are focused on to my opponent, the lieutenant governor was unable in the to talk about a serious economic problem of maryland and unable to defend his age a record of failure has chosen to try to distract voters away from those important issues and talk about things that are not nearly as much on the minds of the voters in maryland that he is twisting and putting out these commercials that are completely false. we held a press conference, with through every single commercial. he has a new commercial that has

assault weapons in school yards by the swingset and in grocery stores and says that i oppose background checks and i want to put assault weapons advanced of the mentally ill. i can assure you that is 100% false. i didn't think, for so i'm the only republican that rain in this race in the primaries that i would not repeal s.b. 281. we are not rolling back anything, number one. number two, i was concerned the law didn't go far enough in keeping guns out of the hands, guns out of hands of the mentally ill and didn't do enough to ensure that we have instant point of sale background checks and join the federal nic system. maryland is the worst state in the country for reporting mental illness which is a huge problem when we talk about these issues. i didn't think the bill addressed that which is why i opposed it.

i'm a small business. i've never voted for anything. i'm just talking about my opinion on the bill and i've been very clear about where it is to your commercials on that and everything else are 100% misleading. >> moderator: rebuttal. brown: opinions matter and voters ought to know what your opinion is. you say publicly as you did this evening that you won't roll back the firearm safety act but you spoke to a group of extreme gun owners and said don't worry, give me a pass in public because when i'm governor i'm going to use executive order to rollback the provisions for our unsaved economic point of superintendent and the state police who will interpret the law in a way because we'll be back on the street. that was in a full exposé by the "washington post" but this is not me making this up. you have taken decisions you said a thirty year businessman, you've been a political operative for 30 just. you've taken a position, for example, to ban abortions, overturn roe v. wade and to limit contraception's. now you are having this campaign

conversion where you say that, we take a different position. how can the voters trust if you're saying something different and public one year and something different and private another your? voters ought to know your opinions and what you enforce. >> moderator: andy? >> governor o'malley has taken steps to welcome some of the unaccompanied minors across the border recently. he has tried to marshal assistance for them once they're here. what would be your administration's policy towards these immigrants and others who lack legal status in the united states? hogan: i will go back and take the privilege of responding to some of these off-base attacks that just came from the lieutenant governor. he says i have a 30 year record. i started a business 30 years ago, spent my life in the private sector. i did leave my business for four years to serve as a cabinet secretary, but he says i oppose abortion even in the cases of rape and incest, and that i want to take away birth control. that is just absolute not true. it's not my position now. it's never been my position in my entire life. you are taking some inaccurate

article from 34 years ago that was referring to my father and not me. i don't have a 30 year record of opposing this. i've said we're not going to rollback anything, nothing is going to change with respect to reproductive rights, whether i'm governor or the lieutenant governor is elected. that's another one of the false ads. it's just wrong. i think he should apologize to the women of maryland for trying to scare them. let's go back to this issue on immigration. first of all we are a nation of immigrants. my wife who is here with me today, she's a first generation american. she emigrated from south korea. my family came from ireland, all four of my grandparents. we are a beacon of hope and freedom and i understand why we want to be welcoming to immigrants who want to come to the united states. however, we're also a nation of laws. we've got to figure out, i don't blame people who want to come to the united states and break the

rules. i understand they want a better life for themselves and their children who i blame is the president and the congress, both republicans and democrats in washington for failing to come up with any kind of a comprehensive immigration policy or strategy, and for allowing it to happen. brown: i'm a first generation american. my father came to this country out of poverty in kingston jamaica for a better way of life for himself and his family. he wanted to not a enjoy the benefits of america but make a contribution to the greatness that is america. this is the land of immigrants. some of our families arrived six decades ago like mine. some six weeks ago, and some centuries ago but each of us has the opportunity or should be afforded the opportunity to make a contribution to the greatness that is our nation. there is failed immigration policy or the inability to enact immigration reform in congress. and that is really the source of the problem.

we are not going to fix that in maryland, but the question is what does the government do to be able to manage undocumented immigrants who are in maryland? and i think we see children stranded at the border and humanitarian crisis, that's exhibit a of the policy. how do we manage the? i've laid out a framework for managing that. i think as people and as a nation we have an obligation to protect children. we don't leave children stranded at the border. we will protect them. we will reunite them with their families because children do better when they with their families. when it's safe to do so we will return them to the country of origin. when we can do that we will have been in our foster care system, social service system provided the federal reimburses maryland. we have vibrant foster care system in maryland. we can accommodate a small group

of children, let's protect them from return them, make sure the federal government pays the full bill. hogan: for the most part we agree. the issue is, it's a humanitarian crisis. it's a tremendous problem for the nation of all these undocumented children crossing the border in ways. my first concern is the health and safety of these children. we do have to look at that. i wanted to make sure since they came across the border we took care of the immediate needs, they were fed, clothed, housed and we take care of any medical attention. i don't think it made sense for maryland to try to bring more than two maryland. we've taken 10 times more per capita than any other state. i don't think it's fair to the taxpayers in maryland or to the children really to be bussed thousands of miles away from there point of origin to be put into maryland. it just didn't make sense to me so we have a bit of a disagreement. we do want to take care th of te

kids but i think this administration has been too aggressive. >> moderator: thank you, mr. hogan. brown: rebuttal? >> moderator: that was rebuttal. people watching have answered about their safety. even though there are some statistics that showed there is a decrease in crime in the state of maryland. what is your plan to address what appears to be a continuing crime problem in the state? brown: i understand no family is immune from the tragedy of crime, even violent crime. six years ago my cousin kathy was killed by her estranged boyfriend. with a gun in front of to montgomery police officers who in turn killed him. because of that, i support the fire and safety act of 2013. i also led the effort in maryland to give judges greater authority to order domestic abusers to surrender their firearms and issue a protective order.

because of those measures and others, perhaps more importantly because of the courage of the men and women in law enforcement who are in communities around the state, we have driven crime down to levels we haven't seen in four decades. our work continues until everyone can walk outside of their home, their porch or on the corner of the street and say this is the kind of me but i want to raise my family, start a business, live work or play. we afford to do and that's why we get rollback the provisions of the firearms safety act which i intend to fully enforce. we are beginning to see after a year a reduction in gun related crime in the state as a result of the. i have a proposal to drive down recidivism. we're making progress at some stage doing better than us. we will make sure our reentry population doesn't commit crimes. we will make sure they have the training, support so they can once again be productive and rejoin their family. drive down recidivism. there's a number things we can do, proposals offered.

you can rest assured, i will use every tool available including gun safety laws to make sure that you're living in a safer neighborhood. >> moderator: thank you. your response, mr. hogan. hogan: with some of the toughest gun safety laws in the entire country but that hasn't stopped us from the one of the most violent states in the nation. we are in the top 10 in violent crimes, crimes committed with guns and a murder. i'm not sure how much progress we have made. i know them a lot more to do. crying is a search problem in maryland. i've been traveling all across the state. i've talked with people in urban areas, rural and suburban areas, and i've met with local police departments and sheriff's and states attorneys and i can take the number one problem we have in maryland is heroin. we have an epidemic of heroin. we have recently been called a heroin capital of the united states. it's not just happening in

inner-city baltimore and in urban areas. this has infiltrated into small communities all across the state. i was up in frederick where 60% of the people are gang related, and drug-related with heroin. i was in st. mary's county and southern maryland and they said 60% of the problems they're dealing with our as a result of heroin. i was in caroline county, one of the smallest counties on the eastern shorecompanies and what's the number one problem? era when. with number one problem in the united states. every state on the east coast has declared a state of emergency on this problem. our administration has done nothing and hasn't taken action in the we are the worst in the country. one thing i will do is get to work. we will call a state of emergency in january. we will bring a summit together to bring all the parties, look at this problem of violent crime, drugs and gangs that are infiltrating our state. brown: larry, it's disappointing when you say you don't know how

much progress that we have made because i think it's incumbent upon you and i to inform ourselves of the issues so we know what the true challenges are. the facts are we've driven crime down to the lowest level in four decades. we've driven down crime against women and children to levels we haven't seen in quite some time. why are we doing it? so i understand we're making progress. i understand why. because we're taking guns off the streets, protecting victims, putting more into drugs, treatment and counseling in the institutions and in the communities than ever before. we have skills training in the institutions and partnerships with nonprofit community. that's why recidivism has gone from 50% to 40%. you have to understand that as a governor because perhaps the most important responsibility we have is to ensure the public safety. you have to understand what's working and what's not. we've driven recidivism down. we have more work to do. we have driven crime down, we have more work to do.

you've got to understand the problem. >> maryland congressional district has been ranked among the most gerrymandered in the nation. if you were governor would you commit to changing the way maryland drives its congressional district lines? hogan: apps will be i would. my campaign has been about nonpartisanship. three and half years ago i started a group called change a maryland which is the largest nonpartisan citizen group in the state history. with 117,000 people involved and have are democrats and independent. my life has been out reaching across the out and trying to do what you like and coming up with commonsense bipartisan solutions. the partisan redistricting done in maryland was probably the worst in the entire country, and it's not something that should ever happen again. i would take these decisions out of the hands of the monopoly and the politicians in annapolis and put it into an independent audit of some kind. i think we need to take action.

to our proposals around the country. i would support removing the redistricting process out of the hands of politicians and putting it into a group that could make on his decisions. brown: i support independent commission as well and i've said that over the course of this campaign. i think it's the right thing to do for a number of reasons. i think it gives greater confidence in maryland voters. in the way we have redistrict. but it also i believe addresses the dysfunction we're seeing in our nations capital. you are having members of congress who now represent some extreme right and left districts and i think that's why you don't have immigration reform. we don't have a natural energy policy and other important things that ought to be happening in washington. so i will certainly create an independent commission. don't want to get too far out in front because we never that's going to be in the second term of our administration around

census. it will be in immediate future but i support an independent commission but also support at least one or two supreme court justices are calling for, which is an amendment the u.s. constitution because we can fix redistricting in maryland ends in still greater confidence among voters but we still need to address the larger national problem so that in washington where the redistricting resulted in dysfunction can we can get back to this to work in washington which isn't happening today. >> moderator: any rebuttal? hogan: first of all i can the lieutenant governor does want to claim any responsibility. he agrees now we have to do something about the terrible redistricting but it took place during his administration. he and governor on malik presided over these districts, so i do agree with him though on the dysfunction in washington. i can do a talk to people every single day you're just completely fed up with

professional politicians and they feel as if our elected leaders are not solving problems. they are angry with republicans and democrats. that's why i put focus on nonpartisanship. i think that's what most people in maryland would like to see instead of the rabid partisanship in washington and the monopoly is in annapolis a dozen of honest and open debate, no checks and balances. it's one of the reasons why i am running for governor. >> moderator: we talked about this at the top of this debate. let's get deeper into it. what are your plans to improve the business climate so more businesses do not leave maryland and take jobs with them? traffic i think we agree fundamentally that we need to strengthen maryland's business climate. there are some aspects of our business climate where we are very strong, quality workforce second to none. making investments in infrastructure. maryland's quality of life. there are other areas where we

need dramatic improvements like the regulatory environment. we can streamline regulations in maryland, make it more cost effective for businesses to comply. we can do that without running away from our obligations to protect the of vibrant our consumers in the workforce. we can do that. can only and i have declared in a brown-ulman administration the very first strategic role that we announce in every organization needs to declare strategic goals and develop the metrics that drive the metrics towards the goal, our first strategic goal will be to positioned maryland's business climate to be number one in the nation. look, there's a raging debate whether our business climate -- climate is hostile to visit or whether it's business friendly. ken ulman and i are not participate in that debate. our focus is on what you believe we are hostile or not. let's improve the business climate. so bmw can expand its footprint as it does. samore amazons will come to

maryland. the under armour which is announced an expansion, lockheed martin is just and announced an expansion of operations in baltimore county. volvo in washington county. frito-lay in harper county. we have corporations that's a tremendous amount of strengthen our business climate and are expanding and investing, i think all of us can agree with doctor strengthen our business climate. hogan: i guess my question would be to the lieutenant governor, why haven't you strengthened the business climate? it's your policies, your realtor if i become busier antibusiness attitude and your owner's tax policies that are driven 8000 businesses out of the state. it has cost us double unemployment and at least 200,000 jobs. you are now saying you want to make as number one for business but you killed 8000 businesses. how will it change over the next four years from the past eight years? you have some responsibility. you will create all these jobs. why did almost lead the nation in job losses? why have we lost 200,000 jobs?

why are we-the national average on unemployment? what's going to be different over the next four years? this is the main reason why i got into this race. i started this group change maryland three years ago. we've been focused on how to make maryland more competitive. we held a business summit on improving maryland's economic competitiveness two years in a row where we brought in business leaders with economist and think tanks and represents a federal, state and local government from both parties and we talked about this. we have three fundamental problems. according to ceo magazine where 41st out of 50 states and business friendliness. that will change on day one with me because maryland will be open for business. we will focus on how to bring more business to maryland. create more opportunities and more jobs for our citizens. the regulatory environment you say you want to try to clean up and streamline is the one you created. industry with a lot of

businesses out of the state. i talk to people who say they moved to virginia and got things done in 90 days. the right and does know what the left hand is doing and they're running around changing the rules all the time to its art owners tax policy. with the fourth highest taxed state in the nation. it's costing businesses to flee the state. brown: you didn't put out a single proposal. you asked a lot of questions. not a single proposal. you are not a great we can strengthen our business climate by providing tax relief. we disagree on how. you would start with the largest corporations them a small group, the wealthiest. many of whom have headquarters out of the state of maryland. you would give them a $300 million annual tax give away. you said it in september. you would roll that back to six points 2%. you said in the spring that you would try to completely eliminate the corporate income tax and that would put a gaping hole in the next governor's budget.

i don't support that. i support tax relief to small and entrepreneurial business is a great two out of every three middle-class jobs and provide opportunities for working families. that's how we will create a stronger business climate in maryland. >> moderator: andy? spent each year served in an administrative from each party. mr. hogan, could you tell me a policy of your admin session which you disagree and mr. brown, a policy in the amount administration with which he disagreed? hogan: that's a tough question. first of all, i had the on of serving for four years as a cabinet secretary in the early administration but i agreed with a lot of things they did. one thing i didn't agree with and something tha lieutenant governor brought up earlier is to wish and went up 40%. i was never supportive of it, have never supported one thing in tuition increases at any point in my entire life and, in fact, i've been a leading voice of opposition to the fighters in

a row that the lieutenant governor and together have raised tuition. that would be the number one issue. as far as something they have done well, i think it's a pretty good job of spending the numbers and confusing people on the facts the that's the only thing i can point you. brown: so let me sort of explain our relationship that a governor has with the lieutenant governor. i was asked are you prepared to be lieutenant governor. i said the best expense i had prepared when was i was an executive offer any company in the military. it was company commanders company. i the privilege of going into closed doors with the command and telling them and sharing how to take a soldiers from how to do the mission to ensure we have the resources to at the end of the day the company commander made a decision and we both walked out the door, and i supported the company commanders decision in effectively leaving that company.

so that's a lot of the what a governor, lieutenant governor works. have accepted the are a few things i disagree with governor amelie. one of them for example, was the reducing deductions on the income tax which isn' is interpd by some as a mortgage interest deduction. i didn't agree with that. ..

>> moderator: thank you. unfortunately, because of time, we're going to move op to the next question, there won't be reputtal on this one. -- rebuttal on this one. kimberly in aberdeen asks, what is your priority? browne: my priority is to insure -- thank you, kimberly. when we build a better maryland for marylanders, that's all marylanders. the poverty rate for maryland is the lowest in the nation for women. and we've made the greatest strides, i think along with hawaii, in reducing the gender wage gap. but we've got more work to do. that's why i supported raising the minimum wage which mr. hogan opposed. why? because the composite, if you will, the typical, the average minimum wage earner is a 33-year-old single woman.

she was making minimum wage which was less than the federal poverty level and unable to provide for her family. so i supported giving her and 455,000 other marylanders a raise out of poverty. studies show that it boosts our economy, and it creates jobs. it's good for women, it's good for the economy. i've led the effort in reducing domestic violence in maryland, a number of measures; support services for victims, programs in hospitals, giving judges the authority to order abusers to surrender firearms, and this year finally after 19 years of failed effort, we were able to finally at maryland join the ranks of all other states in the district of columbia reduce the standard of proof for a woman to get a protective order in a domestic violence case. that is tremendous progress for domestic -- victims of domestic violence. both men and women, but we know a disproportionate number of victims are women. whether we're talking about economic issues, educational

opportunities, health opportunities,ly continue to be on the side of maryland's women. >> moderator: thank you. mr. hogan? hogan: well, first of all, i agree with a lot of what the lieutenant governor just said, and i think he has done a good job with regard to domestic violence issues, and we talked about that a few months ago when we kicked off domestic violence month and talked about things theyed they had done well. i talk to women around the state, and they're the most concerned about our economy. women in maryland are faced with, first of all, most households in maryland are headed by women, and then in all households just about, women make a lot of the financial decisions, and they're the ones that are suffering as a result of 40 consecutive tax hikes that have crushed struggling families. most of these hurt people at the lower end of the income scale, and the number one issue, the number one women's issue in my opinion is getting our economy back on track, putting women back to work so that they can support their families. with respect to the minimum

wage, first of all, i said we're not going to do anything to change the minimum wage legislation. it is going to help some people at the lower end of the income scale, but there are drawbacks. we may lose 12,000 jobs as a result. you mentioned the average minimum wage earner is a 33-year-old single mom. well, it shouldn't be that way. minimum wage was designed for kids to get their first opportunity to join the work force, and if we could restore our economy and bring businesses back and create better paying jobs, then we wouldn't have to deal with this issue. lastly, i support unfettered access to birth control for every single woman in maryland, contrary to the commercials that my opponent has been running. in fact, we support over-the-counter birth control paid for by insurance. we're going to do nothing to roll back reproductive rights in spite of the attacks by my opponent. >> moderator: thank you, gentlemen. we begin our closing statements

mr. hogan, you go first. hogan: well, folks, this election is not just your typical fight between democrats and republicans. it's more important than that. this is a fight for maryland's future. and it's a fight worth fighting. the decision that we make in just 28 days will have a lasting impact on the future of our state. it's an important decision. and i believe that the voters of maryland need to just make a simple choice. it really all comes down to this: if you're comfortable with the status quo, if you're happy with the direction that our state is heading and you believe that a third term of malley/brown policies would be good for you, your family, our future and our state, you should vote for my opponent. but if you agree that things are way off track heading in the wrong direction and that new leadership is needed in annapolis, it doesn't matter what part of the state you live in or what your party affiliation is, you need to vote to bring about that change.

so i'm asking if you want to bring real change to maryland, i'm asking for your vote on november 4th. thank you. >> moderator: thank you, mr. hogan. mr. brown. brown: i believe firmly every marylander should be able to pursue the american dream where when you work hard, play by the rules, sacrifice when necessary, you cannot only pursue, but achieve your dreams. my parents came to this country six decades ago in pursuit of that dream can. marylanders do have a choice in november, and the choice is whether to embrace the vision that ken oman and i share with countless marylanders across the state where we'll get up every morning fighting for families and middle class values or whether we favor large corporations and the privileged few. are we going to fund pre-k or give a corporate tax giveaway. are we going to keep guns off our streets or go back to the days nobody wants to return to?

i need your vote in four weeks. i need your help in the next four weeks, but more importantly, we need you each and every day for the next four years as together we build a better maryland. >> moderator: thank you, gentlemen. of course, we would like to thank both of the candidates and wjz-tv. please remember to cast your vote on election day. for andy green, i'm dick carter. good evening. there are. ♪ ♪ >> thank you for watching. this has been a presentation from wjz 13, maryland's news station. >> the west virginia senate debate and other debates from around the country are available on our web site, c-span.org. here's a look at some of the debate from west virginia. >> would you vote again today to repeal aca which would mean

those 160,000 west virginians would lose their insurance? >> what i would vote for is to repeal and replace. i voted for that 50 times. but i also recognize that the aca has some very good things about it. first of all, making sure people don't get cut off their insurance for pre-existing conditions. absolutely for that, was for that before the president decided to take it in a larger and much more detrimental direction. i believe keeping our students on until they're 26, i think that's a good thing. so there are good things. so we need to keep what's good, replace it with what will work, get rid of a business mandate, make sure that our businesses are not having a 30% increase in their premiums which we're seeing. 7,000 west virginians have lost their health care plan because remember the president, who i'll remind you my opponent supported and supports his policies and his health care policy, said if you like your health care plan, you can keep it period. well, that didn't work out so

well. so, you know, it was sold as a bill of goods, basically. we're hearing people who are losing their physicians, whose deductibles have gone up into the thousands of dollars. it's unaffordable. -- affordable. and so were things wrong, yes, with the health care system. i wish we'd worked in a bipartisan way to find a way to keep folks who are on insurance now, the 140,000 on medicaid, we want to keep them insured because that's important not just to them, but to the state. >> your response? >> there she goes again. i wish that -- she says one thing and votes another way. she says she's for all of these things in the aca, but yet he has voted to repeal it. i won't vote to repeal it because i know what it's like to go without health care. my daughter delaney had open heart surgery when she was a week old, and many folks across west virginia prayed for her, and those prayers were answered

because that surgery saved her life. she's a healthy, happy 12-year-old right now. but when my husband and i started our small business, we wanted to buy insurance. so he called, and i can remember the day i came home and he said, natalie, i talked to the insurance companies trying to get insurance for us and the business and the family. and he said they would coffer me and you, concern -- cover me and you, i but they wouldn't cover delaney because of her pre-existing condition. what parent takes something that their child can't have? so i will never go back to the days when insurance companies can deny insurance for someone with a pre-existing condition. congresswoman capito to sit here and say that she's for that too, she's voted to take that away. >> tonight coverage of campaigns from around the country including the wisconsin governor's debate between incumbent republican scott walker and his democratic challenger, mary burke. live coverage at 8 p.m. eastern

on c-span. >> house homeland security committee will hold a field hearing in texas about the state's response to the ebola virus. officials will testify in the dallas/fort worth area about thomas duncan who was the first person diagnosed with ebola in the united states. live coverage of the hearing at 1 is p.m. eastern on c-span. >> c-span2, providing live coverage of the u.s. senate floor proceedings and key public policy events. and every weekend, booktv now for 15 years the only television network devoted to nonfiction books and authors. c-span2, created by the cable tv industry and brought to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. watch us in hd, like us on

facebook and follow us on twitter. >> the american enterprise institute hosted a discussion on tackling global poverty with acumen venture capital fund jacqueline novogratz. this is an hour. [inaudible conversations] >> thank you for coming today, appreciate it very much. i know that we're, we're joined by our friends at c-span, and many of you are watching over the internet, and to all of you whether you're here or whether you're virtual, i'm delighted to welcome you. my name is arthur brooks, i'm president of the american

enterprise institute, and you are at an aei event on our series on tackling global poverty with my friend, jacqueline novogratz. those of you who are here because of jacqueline know of the incredible accomplishments, the approach to poverty she has taken which has really changed the terms of the debate. those of you who are not familiar with her work, i'm going to give you one paragraph, and then we're going to get started on a conversation that's going the change your way of thinking, i bereave. jacqueline is the founder and ceo of acumen, a nonprofit impact investing fund that we're going to be talking about more in much greater detail today. it changes the way the world tackles poverty by investing in companies. in other words, there is not a bright line between iffy land throe by and -- between philanthropy and the contrary. it is an amalgam of the two approaches that truly is novel. under jacqueline's leadership, acumen has invested more than $88 million in 82 companies, is

that correct? is that current? >> yeah. >> okay. >> it might be over 90 after yesterday. >> all right. that's pretty good. and these are companies in south asia and africa, basically all over the world where there is a need for this approach. delivering health care, water, housing, education and energy, all of it oriented toward the poor. these companies have created and supported 60,000 jobs and brought basic services to more than 123 million people. her background before joining acumen is a marvel. she founded and directed the rockefeller foundation's philanthropy workshop and the next generation leadership program, she co-founded a microfinance institution in rwanda where you lived for three years, i believe, and she began her career at chase manhattan bank. she's on the board of a number of great organizations such as the aspen institute, and if that were not all, she is also the author of the 2010 bestseller, "the blue sweater: bridging the

gap between rich and poor in an interconnected world." if you haven't read it, you should. there are a lot of key insights that have attracted me to jacqueline's work, i've known about her for a long time, and i'm delighted to say that we've become friends over the past few months. we had a terrific dinner the other night at jacqueline's apartment in new york city where we talked about some of the biggest issues that are facing us in politics, in politics in america and around the world and how all of us can be better ready to serve the poor. been looking forward to this one for a long time. welcome, jacqueline. >> thanks, arthur. i'm excited to. >> have this conversation at aei that's going to benefit everybody, i think. i want to start with a little bit of background. some people know really well what acumen does. those who don't are going to be amazed. so can you just walk us through one of your recent projects from investors to entrepreneurs to customers to just kind of give us the full flavor of this phenomenon, because that's really what it is.

this is not an investment vehicle, it's a phenomenon sort of soup to nuts helping people. how does it work? >> all right, great. so i'll start with the investors who are in the very early stage of change philanthropists. so people give us philanthropy to find those entrepreneurs that are daring to tackle the biggest problems that they see where both markets have failed in aid and government have fallen short. i'm going to give you an example which is, doesn't immediately come to mind for most people, but it's emergency services, ambulances. so in india you've got a big, bloated, corrupt government ambulance system, and you've got a very small private sector ambulance system, both of which are broken, also collapsed. until a few years ago, if you wanted to go to the hospital, you called a taxi. if you wanted to go to the morgue, you called an ambulance. you had to pay a bribe to get it. first thing that happened, entrepreneur comes in and says

i've got this crazy idea, i've got eight ambulances, i'm going the bust this system. i'm going to build you a much better system. with the pricing model that's all private. so if i take you to the pay hospital, you pay. if i take you to a public clinic, it's free. or whatever you can afford. so that my ethos can be service for all, but it's done through the private sector. no traditional investor is going to put money into a company like that, particularly in a city like mumbai with 17 million people, eight ambulances. so we take our philanthropy, but rather than give it away, we buy 30% of this company. we use patient capital because it's got to be long term so that the entrepreneurs can risk, fail, learn, start again. i don't think we understood just how much they would have to fight vested interests, big bureaucracy. everything from trying to get a number without paying bribes to

sabotage of their company to teaching people that there's actually a legitimate system. so you have to build the market. what happens, there are exogenous factors. as this company is growing -- and we are continuing to invest not only capital, but then we use more my philanthropy to brig in leadership, talent through our fellows program. seven fellows over seven years. there's a terrorist attack in mumbai, and suddenly not only does acumen see that this thing works, but the population and government sees that a city needs an emergency response system that the world can count on. interestingly, the same thing happened in the united states in the cold war where eisenhower saw that we only had a private sector ambulance company, and so if we got attacked by a nuke, we didn't have an emergency response system. that was when government came in and started partnering with the private sector to build out a public system. same thing happened in india.

so this company went from a private company into partnership with government, and then we could put more traditional capital then at that point into the company, and now that little eight-ambulance company has a thousand ambulances, 5,000 employees, serves 200 million people across india. and last monday opened its first fleet of ambulances in dubai. there's also a copycat of it in pakistan, and they're in the conversations with saudi arabia. >> wow. >> so you can really make public change starting with private resources and private innovation. >> how long was this period from eight ambulances up to, what'd you say, a thousand? >> almost eight years. >> so this is a really high rate of change. i mean, it was doubling every year for a long time. >> oh, yeah. >> and then some. >> but when you look attritional capital and -- at traditional capital, peopling want the money

in and out anywhere between three to seven years and they want the return. >> right. you bought a 30% share in the eight-ambulance company, how much money was that? >> i can't tell you because we haven't sold the company yet. >> yeah, yeah, yeah. we'll be talking to the department of justice. [laughter] but it was clearly not a huge amount of money, but your investors are going to get a big return. >> well, remember, any -- our investors in the first phase of this company were all philanthropists, and so acumen will get a return, and that will be used to reinvest in other innovations for the poor. the other thing to remember is that while this might be a success story with a 5x return to our capital, there are a lot of failurings that happen -- failures that happen as well. and side by side we needed a lot of philanthropy to put talent into the company so that this company could succeed. from our perspective success is

that we built a company that really created a private and public system for change, you created jobs. the world -- we busted a category, if you will, and then the mega home run will be when the capital comes back so we can reinvest. >> uh-huh. paint a picture of the people that are putting in the capital, the donors to acumen so you can make these investments. obviously, not the people, but who's the kind of person who's investing in acumen in. >> we have about 400 people around the world in 22 countries. pakistanis, kenyans, ghanas, indians, colombians that are supporting acumen so that we can do this work. i would say anything from a young person in banking that gives us $5-$10,000 a year up to names that you would recognize

that would support acumen with a million dollars in a year. and the reason they do is they see not only great efficiency in the way that they're using philanthropy for change, but long-term sustainability, that if you get these right, you don't shut it down when the philanthropist gets bored because you've got a company that's actually working, and it's working over the long term. foundations are also working with us, and interestingly corporations are now coming to us. because as these companies really build and scale, they've got all the same issues that major companies have; supply chain issues, marketing issues. so we have partnerships with dow and unilever and barclays who are bringing some of their talent to help build out these companies. >> have you spawned similar start-ups like acumen? are there other organizations like act acumen that have startd because of your success? >> wince she started -- since we started, there will have been at 300 impact investment funds that have started, and we also worked

on metrics with other organizations to help create almost a trade association called the aspen network of development. enterprises. andy, iris which is looking at standards for how you measure impact, not just financial change. so i think that we're starting to see a great convergence, arthur. where everybody's starting to recognize that we need to do things differently. private sector, government and philanthropy if we're really going to create a system that includes everybody. >> you talk about patient capital, and i think we have a concept of what that means. you're not trying to get the rounder in a month -- the return out in a month. sometimes it takes a long time to do the kinds of things like you were talking about the ambulance project in india. but you've also talked about patient capital being a third way to think about aid. that suggests there are two other ways. what are the two, what are the first two ways that are less adequate to doing it? >> well, in some ways it's

connected to hi own background. i started off as you said on wall street primarily in latin america, and i saw the power of markets. i also saw its limitations in terms of market sometimes overlook or exploit the poor. and on the other side, i saw when i moved to rwanda, i saw power of really smart philanthropy and aid, and i also saw the tendency of top-down approaches to traditional aid and charity to create dependence. and if i have learned anything in this career of mine, it is that dignity is more important to the spirit than wealth and that if we're serious about poverty, we've got the find those initiatives that enable people to have freedom and have choice and really participate. so what patient capital does as a third way is to take the best of markets and the humanitarian ethos of philanthropy to

determine can its success -- determine its success based on those enterprises that can sustain themselves, therefore, move to profitability by bringing affordable services to the poor which will require often a mix of hard core investment and philanthropy side by side long enough until you've created some sort of system where the poor can really participate. >> now, you've given me a couple of criteria for investment. one was about the poor and the other is that it can be sustainable. so those are, obviously, two of your investment criteria. but i'm wondering how did you know about this ambulance company? how do you find the companies to invest in? how do you know what you're going to invest in next? >> well, when we first started, we didn't, and we were, we just were scrambling trying to even create the idea that this was possible. now, as i said, there's a field that has developed. so we actually look at a hundred companies for every company we

would invest in. so we're not any different in terms of the numbers from a typical venture capital firm. like you said, the four screens would be, one, is this truly serving the poor, people who are making $1, $2, $3 a day? two, is it an idea that matters, that we actually see will change their lives? three and most -- one and two are together. two is most important is who is this entrepreneur? not only does this entrepreneur have the self-awareness and the capacity to build the kind of company that will serve millions, but do they have the ethical fiber that will do it in a way that is not corrupt? do he was the determination and the grit to fight what we know is going to come down the pike at them? and then the last two are really around business model. do we see a business model that we believe will move to profitability, and we're not going to spend ten years if your end game is 10,000 people.

will it actually reach a million people or more. >> so criteria two, three and four are effectively exactly the same criteria you'd have if you were a traditional for-profit commercial venture capital firm. you know, is the entrepreneur any good, is the business model good, is this going to be good for explosive returns? >> true. we just need entrepreneurs to have a little more grit and determination, and they really have to understand how the poor make decisions. i can't tell you how many amazing engineers come in with the water technology that's going to change the world. but they have never spent any time in a village, they don't understand how people make decisions, and i could put money on it that it probably isn't going to work, i don't care how good your technology is. >> so give me an example of a terrific idea that would be utterlien unworkable -- utterly unworkable. [laughter] i just want to make sure i don't do this. [laughter] >> well, i mean, probably our

first big failure which was, unfortunately, our second investment or maybe fortunately because people gave us a pass, was a electromagnetic immunosensor -- >> what is that. >> that's what my question was. if you don't understand it, you have no business -- >> i mean, it sounds awesome. [laughter] i want to invest in that. >> i really liked saying it when we first did it. it was a really low cost way to test whether someone had disease, essentially. where you wouldn't have the mess of blood which is quite problematic in the developing world. but taking a technology like that to market costs tens of millions of dollars. and, again, not only changing individuals' behavior, but changing market structures was an impossibility for us. on the water filtration side, which i think is one of hardest areas, is that we'll get are cool technologies that you can,

you know, wear a backpack and take it house to house to deliver water to the poor, and people actually care ant how their -- about how their water tastes a lot. people care about whether they trust you and what this water is. i think people underestimate that -- and this sounds trite -- but they underestimate just how human we all are and that the poor are as human as rich. they care about beauty, comfort, status and are often willing to pay a higher price to get it. and we sometimes bring in our own cultural arrogance by thinking we're doing good for others and actually are being insulting and misguided. >> interesting. you know, a lot of venture capitalists will say the biggest problem they have with brilliant entrepreneurs with great ideas is they overinvest in technology and they underinvest in relationships. i mean, it is basically the human side of all entrepreneurship is

underemphasized among many entrepreneurs that are not really that comfortable with the humans. which is, and so venture capitalists are always looking for those who say, oh, actually i understand how this integrates into the human experience, and you've just told us that. let's get back to the electromagnetic -- >> no, let's not, let's not! [laughter] >> the reason i want to ask one more time is tell me what went wrong with that one. walk me through that failure a little bit more. >> in that case, and this goes back 13 years now, but in that case our capital didn't have to be patient because it just, it just burned. [laughter] >> it impatiently all went away? >> impatiently evaporated. [laughter] and is in that case it was, it actually made us move away from technology to your point. the insight that we got from it was that we were -- our capital was going -- and our brains -- were going to go much further by

looking at health delivery systems like ambulances. we have a maternal health care franchise system in india, not the actual technology. and so now we're starting to look at technologies in a different way with a lot more sophistication, but back then it was the dot.com boom, it was all the rage to look at technologies that would change the world. and now with mobile phones you start to see some real change through that kind of technology. but show me the system, show me how you understand distribution, show me how you understand the poor and how they make decisions, much more interesting conversation about change. >> well, it's pretty interesting. so the main thing you learned from that was exactly what my friends in venture capitalism will tell you which is don't underemphasize the role of human interaction in what an entrepreneur's idea's really going to be all about. and don't be so enamored with

the tech. >> and, in fact, at acumen we train our leaders, including our team, in three real disciplines, financial investing, obviously, operations and then the third which people see as a soft scale, let's say, is often one of the hard scales is moral imagination. >> moral imagination. >> the ability to put yourself in another's shoes and build solutions from that perspective. >> so empathy. >> yeah. and even more than etch think it's -- empathy it's, it's -- yeah, it's empathy in a very pragmatic way and probably the best story that i have that comes to mind is with a company called delight, it's a solar light company. we've been with this company, like the ambulance company, since start-up. we invested at the prototype level. it was a light that was too big, but at that point we thought build it and they will come. we've now learned that's a big,

fat lie when it comes to the poor. it had to be iterated on many, many times. it's a long story, but today that company sells about 5,000 units a month mostly in africa and has brought affordable solar light to 40 million people. i happen to be visited one of those individuals with this big australian figure for africa, and the woman we were visiting is this tiny woman, grandmother. and i said to her why don't you tell dade what you -- david what you like and don't like about this light. and in the old charity model, people would always say nice things to you because you'd just given them a gift. in this model, she's a customer. but i did not expect her to be quite as forthcoming as she was, and she puts her hands on her hips like this, and she said, well, you know, first, if i could charge my cell phone at the same time i was charging my light, this would be a much

better product. and i thought, well, that is a great insight. and then she went, and second -- and then went on to give him four relations as to how he would improve his light. [laughter] and as i was watching this little woman talk to this big man, i thought this is, this is the power -- this is why i started acumen, and this is the power of patient capital, because she is not, neither pandering, nor is she begging. but she's talking to him as an equal, as a customer, and he is trying to earn her trust. and it is in that interaction that they have the opportunity to transform each other. and for me, that's, that's the dignity that comes from real moral imagination. not i'm here to save you, i'm here to help you, but i'm here to build something with you because you have something to bring, and i have something to bring, and that's the way the world can actually change. >> the relationship between two people is remarkably different when one a customer as opposed to one being a grant recipient

or the recipient of charity, and that's what you're trying to establish, right? >> yeah. and more than a customer in terms of i'm going to extract whatever i can from you. it's really in some ways the more i think about patient capital, i start to think of it as a philosophy. that really is based on a more human approach to the kind of capitalism we need to build for the world. and i think there's a craving for it. certainly in this next generation. >> yeah, for sure. let me drill into that a little bit more before we go back to patient capital. you and i, one of the things, the worries i think that you and i share because we've talked about this a bunch of times now, you look around today, and you look at the political dialogue of which, actually, remarkably little political dialogue, and there's mostly recrimination and reproach and kind of an icy silence at least talking to each other. if you could characterize it as a real shame that when you think

about the free enterprise discussion which you're really comfortable with, people think of that as something kind of on the political right. and when you talk about the poverty discussion, that's something on the political left. that a's wrong, right -- that's wrong, right? and what do we do. >> and how can acumen and aei and other organizations that reject those characterizations, what can we do to actually build better dialogue because it's not about a political win, it's actually about helping people using both tools? do you have any thoughts on that that you can share with -- >> first of all, it's one of reasons i so deeply appreciate you. as a thought leader. and what you represent, and we need more of yous, so thank you for being you. >> thank you. and i just want to make sure everybody got that. [laughter] >> you know, and that we're not afraid to talk about where we disglee, but let's tart with the 85% of agreement. second, i think we actually need to listen to more voices of the

poor themselves. some of the most extraordinary and, frankly, when i wrote my book surprising conversations which were incredibly intimidating when i first started them were in some communities. so -- in slum communities. so imagine writing a book about people in the slums and you're standing in front of them like, so what do you think? and what they think is that we want markets to work for us because we work in a really -- we live in a really cruel market system. because they're unfair, they're fully corrupt. we don't get health care unless we pay up front. and so we die. that's, it's a powerful conversation. if our policymakers could listen starting with the people who are most impacted by the policies that were created, well, maybe we would start to have a little bit more empathy, and we would build smarter conversations, smarter conversations that translated into smarter policies. and so maybe i should bring a

whole group to nairobi and all these places -- >> yeah. >> -- for people to see and starting in our own country. >> yeah. do you think that this insight about the complete harmoniousness between poverty relief and free enterprise properly understood? because brutal capitalism that actually doesn't help people and doesn't recognize market failure is not free enterprise. that's one of the key distinctions between pure capitalism and free enterprise, to be sure. what can we -- is this the same problem that we have with the poor in the united states? this is not -- i'm going to assume this is not simply relegated to south asia and sub-saharan africa. do you see this around the united states as well, that the poor don't have enough access to° everything from the safety net to truly fair free enterprise? what are your thoughts on that? >> it's absolutely the same in the united states. where it's, where it's -- where it does differ is that we've got so many public programs that are

also dysfunctional but could be made more functional using companies to push. an example i would give would be when you look at our health care system, the united states spends by far and away more money on both private health care and public health care than any other country in the world. and yet you look at how our numbers are getting worse and worse and worse particularly for the poor, we rate like bang la do alternative when you look at -- bangladesh when you look at african-american males compared to $2 a day bangladeshi males on health basis. >> on health outcomes -- >> life expectancy, health outcomes, maternal -- a lot of our maternal mortality rates in states like mississippi and alabama look plenty bad. in fact, some in india are

better than the united states in some of our poorest southern states. so how do we change that? not by yelling at each other. >> uh-huh. >> but i think there are real opportunities for young social entrepreneurs not to say government is bad or good, but are there ways to create more efficient and effective ways to get people access that saves money, builds help and measures that so is as a country we celebrate the change rather than just yelling at each other across ideological riffs. >> um, want you to look into your crystal ball a little bit because you've been thinking a lot about how we can fix problems of poverty in new and innovative and entrepreneurial ways. somebody else who does that is the last guest we had on our interview series, and that was bill gates. the bill gates, not just a bull gates. [laughter] and bill gates actually made a pretty stunning prediction when

he was here at aei. he said that a true poverty, as traditionally understood -- now, we can define poverty any way we want, we could say poverty's anything under $35 a day if we want, but basically it's $1 or $3 a day as you and i look at it -- he says poverty as traditionally understood can be and very likely will be effectively eradicated by the year 2035. what say you? >> um, i think it's, if your definition of true poverty is a technical definition -- people making less than $1.25 a day or even more countries that are falling within the poor versus unpoor category, i think that that's a real possibility. i think be your definition of true poverty which is our definition at acumen which is much more connected to human

dignity as a human being do i have choice, do i have freedom, am i safe enough to send my children to school and to get them health care so that i can -- >> going up the pyramid a little bit higher. >> a little higher. as a participant, we have a long way to go. and i think that our world would be so much more the world we all want if we looked at poverty both in material and spiritual terms. that we've, we all want the same thing. that sounds so trite, but we've got a long way the go. so by definition in the united states, we don't have poverty in that technical poverty is sense. but a quarter of our kids go to bed hungry every night. so that's where the work needs to be done, is defining poverty based on a lack of capability, a lack of freedom, a lack of choice. >> interesting.

i mean, it's an understanding of need suggests that of course we're going to still have need in 2035. of course there will still be challenges. there will be opportunities for us to work as people who care about those who have less and those who are vulnerable. 25% of people in the united states go to bed hungry each night, 25% of public school children don't receive an adequate education that matches any sort of any career that's productive in the american economy. i mean, these are -- it's hard to imagine -- >> so how can this all work? >> right. >> unless we make sure that we have people who are ready and able to participate and desiring to participate. >> so the definition of need, of course, is just -- it's complicated, but it's great that you're talking about this. tell me a little bit more. what would it mean, what does it mean for people to have human dignity? >> um, it means that when i wake

up in the morning, i actually have the opportunity to work. in many of the places in which we work, people have been resettled two hours out of a slum in delhi so that to move, you know, government housing or what have you, and they have to take a bus for $2 a day into town for two hours to hope that somebody will hire them as a day laborer, and that often opportunity happen. so they end up often not going. that's not dignity. it means if your child is sick, that you don't have to prostitute yourself or go to a money lender at you you are yous rates that will potentially keep your family in poverty, but you actually have a way to keep that child alive and healthy. it means that your children can go to the school you want and not necessarily to a madrassa that is at least a way to get that kid some food. it means really being able to

get the basics taken care of so that you can really start to dream about participating. and when you think about three billion people on the planet making less than $3 a day, really being effectively cut out of society, you're missing the opportunity of all those people to be our musicians and our einsteins and our professors. it's really all of us that lose. >> you know, this is -- i want to emphasize this a little bit because i think this is a really pivotal moment in our understanding of poverty, if we can make this sink in. what jacqueline is saying right now is that poor people are not liabilities. poor people are assets. they're assets that are undertapped. they're sort of dead capital that we have to endeliverren. and -- enliven. and this is part of your human

dignity. if we treat poor people like liabilities, it's just going to worry about their stuff. and to extent that we treat them as assets to society, we're going to liven their capital, and that will also give them earned success and dignity, is this your approach? >> do you think you could join my team and become my communications director? [laughter] that was so good! >> this is revolutionary. >> well, so let me give you an example about when you said what's the third way. i'm sorry you're eating lunch, but if you are, just stop. [laughter] but you've got three million people living in the slums in nairobi, in the worst slums you've got almost two million people. there are no toilets that work. these are places that are known for plying toilets. so -- flying toilets. so because the government has -- you're a slum, you're on illegal

land even though you've been there for five generations, there's no infrastructure. the market says, no way. we're never going to go into the slums to provide toilets. and the charities say these people need toilets, so we're going the build a latrine, but there's nothing -- what do you do with the waste from the latrine? they're dirty, they're dangerous, and people never go there. what people do is defecate in a paper or plastic bag in their home, and they throw it. the flying toilet. when you walk through, it's right out there for everybody to play in, see, get sick from. so these three young entrepreneurs -- and this is where the millennials are so amazing, that third way is to look at that problem from a market perspective, from a charity perspective. forget what perspective, from a solutions perspective based on dig any it. -- dignity. and hay they say, all right,

first, we've got a design issue. there's a vanity station, and then there's a technical piece where the waste is separated. it's picked up every day so it never smells, it's a really pleasant experience. you clean it after every use. you pay five shillings, if you're an adult, three if you're a kid. and that waste is then brought back, composted, turned into organic fertilizer, and the idea is it will be sold onto the market both to small holders and to corporations. now, finding -- building a new market for human organic fertilizer is going to be a big -- >> sounds tricky. >> tricky deal. [laughter] >> yeah. >> but it's starting slowly. and right now they're moving five metric tons of waste a day out of these slums. 300 women now -- or 300 toilets are now up and running, about

half of them are women. and about 12,000 people use these every single day. this if thing works -- and it might take ten years -- we now have a model for sanitation that actually provides jobs, creates better agriculture and brings human dignity. that's the way we need to start thinking as a world. >> amazing. not just people that are assets. >> okay, don't go there. >> okay. [laughter] thank you for saving me there. i was really going down a bad track. >> i do have four brothers. >> that's right. [laughter] i have teenage boy, you can tell where i'm getting my human. [laughter] be -- my humor. before we turn it over to the the audience, because they've got questions too, and i don't want to hog all the time, we've got about 20 minutes left, we've got a lot of young people here, and who won't want to be you? >> a lot of people. >> right now i want to be you. so i'd like you to give us some

advice. now, i mean, i read your bio which is sort of intimidating for a lot of people because you've done a lot of things. you've worked in the traditional nonprofit sector, you've learned a lot, you've traveled. i mean, you can't just do that. that's not a career that you have immaculately conceived. it takes a lot of time, and what are you going to tell the ordinary people who want to participate in this but don't have that kind of background? how can somebody just start getting involved and create some value along these lines? what's the advice that you give people? >> um, well, let me answer that a on two levels. for acumen, actually, we've had to build a lot of tools because so many people have come to us. so the first thing we did was build a fellows program for those people that really want to put their lives into this work. and we started off at the global level and take ten people a year but are now getting about 1200 applications from a hundred

countries for that. so when we realized the demand was so great and we had even more need in the countries in which we operated, we started regional programs, and now we've got regional programs running in pakistan, india and east africa, 20 fellows in each. but just this morning i got the numbers in, and we got another 2,000 application for those programs. so you start to see this thirst out there. so we said to the young people who want to be part of it, why don't you start chapters. and now there are 26 chapters around the world including one in washington. i don't know if there's a chapter member here, back there. and it's one of our best -- i think there's like five or seven hundred people in the washington chapter. so these are young professionals who want to think about getting involved in this work in one way ott another, and acumen is just one channel for it. but to learn to know each other, to network, to start to understand how this works. then the chapter members said to us can't you give us some of the training that you're giving to

your fellows? so we started online courses about a year ago in leadership, in social metrics, in moral imagination, and 100,000 people are taking those courses this year. and so that's another way, to go online, take these courses. you have to do meet-ups so you start learning, getting educated. and then i would say from that there are real opportunities to think about building your own social enterprise, getting involved in other social enterprises. obviously, financially supporting organizations like ours that do this kind of work. but i would say that even beyond that in some ways particularly with this generation, they're such a -- there's almost a, an overreverence for the entrepreneur and that what we really need if we're going to change the world which is long and hard and messy and requires not only lateral thinking, but more nuanced thinking, is for

people wherever they are to start changing the way they define their own success. and so whether you're working at a corporation or on wall street or in a church or at a nonprofit to be asking yourself, are my actions, is my language bringing more freedom, more dignity to other people rather than did i make more money today? that when we start shifting in this way, i think that we can start creating more unconventional partnerships to make the change that the world crying for. >> so did my actions today neglect the poor or create more dignity? did my actions today create more dependence or more dignity? these are the way you can avoid the pitfalls of one and two and think more along the channels of the third way. is that right in. >> that's right. >> i'm going to the turn to audience now, but one more quick matter of housekeeping. you had talked about chapters

for acumen, you talked about courses that people can do, take, and you talked about the fact that investing capital in the organization is a great thing to do, and there's a need for that. on your web site you can get all the information to do any of those things. donors can go there, students, people who want to get involved with their time, talent and treasure can go to your web site and find out how to do it, right? >> yes. >> what's the web site? >> acumen.org. >> all right. that's easy. i'm going to turn to you. who's first? we've got a bunch of people. we've got some questions out here. right in the middle, yes, ma'am. say your -- wait for the mic and then say your name. that's great, thanks. >> my name is rachel mann, i'm a research associate at the public international law and policy group, and i was wondering if you could just elaborate a little on how you work with the government structures in existing civil society organizations when you begin work and what do you do when you see these structures as a barrier to access. >> thanks. so acumen itself doesn't start

off by saying here's -- let's work with a particular government or not. it would be more when one of our companies either hits a barrier or starts to partner with government for change. interestingly, the real innovation that i'm starting the to see in the world around serving the poor is coming from corporations. and i have literally had conversations with three different ceos of fortune 100 companies that have either the technologies we were talking about earlier that they would call orphan technologies that are too small, too hard to actually -- for them as a big entity -- to roll out and serve low income markets, and yet they, they and their employees are starting to can themselves the question if we can do this, don't we have a moral obligation to do it even if it's a loss leader? and will the world then see that

we're better citizens? and i think that in that is a huge opportunity for a different kind of partnership, and it is pushing both civil society to learn more about the corporates as well as the corporates to understand what it means to work with smaller, nimble but resource-constrained organizations. and some of the best examples that we have would be with dow and with unilever and the way we've learned is the way we do everything, from entrepreneurially and from the bottom up, we start with technical assistance where they bring their senior leaders to actually work with our companies so that we get to know each other. arthur used the word "relationship" before. it's really about building trust, building relationships and insuring that there's alignment. because too often people start with partnership, but they're not honest about what they get out of the deal in the partnership and what others are getting out of the partnership and what you're trying to do together. and if we don't get that right

having language around that, we're going to get the same kind of dysfunction we've gotten too often in the past. >> let's go right back here, and we'll go up to the front table. yeah. >> yes. my name is mark carr, and i'm the board chair of the d.c. acumen chapter. >> thank you so much. >> no, thank you. [laughter] my question, and one of the questions we get a lot as a chapter is what or have there been any successful exits, and if so, besides the financial returns what are some other characteristics of the exit? >> thanks for that. um, we've exited -- of the 88 million, we've brought back about 14 million to acumen, so that's 14 million that we didn't have to fundraise which is a big deal. that then will be reinvested. the big exits that everyone's

waiting for is a tricky, a tricky question in that we think internally about do you exit for the sake of exiting when you're trying to raise money as a company is really growing, or do you actually stay with the company and continue to claim and build value so that when you finally exit, both there's more financial resources coming back to acumen, but you've got something really to hoe the world. so there are -- to show the world. so there are three companies that we are looking at as potential exits. i think that short term, five to seven-year exit, is very much overrated, and wait for this to play out ten years from beginning to end of this capital, and you're going to see some real exit. feel defensive about that answer. and the second one is in

addition to exit, when i look at success, i really do start to think about those category-breaking innovations that wouldn't have happened without this kind of investment. so delight, seven years ago solar units were, first of all, too expensive for a household to use. now that you're at 40 million, you've proven a model with a profitable company that is continuing to grow. we're also seeing a platform on which you can build other lessons and other kinds of products. so that company has spawned other companies like a company called mcopa which is now a joint venture between delight, the solar company, and pesa which is a mobile banking platform in kenya. based on the insight that the poor want access to solar and, frankly, they want access to more than a light. they'd like a system. and once you make that conversion -- we had to do the hard work for five years to convert people to actually trust

that solar would work better than kerosene. but the real thing is you pay for kerosene a little bit every day. that's how they wanted to pay. so the economists who say, well, if you're paying $4 a month for your solar and $5 a month for kerosene, of course you want solar. but if you're paying 50 cents a day for your kerosene, that's all that matters. now with mobile banking, you can pay 50 cents a day for your solar. so when you start to look at why we stay in, this kind of learning is actually a public good. ..

i was very clear with the board and with myself that we were there, that there would be hard times and as we all know there've been really hard times. but if you are really focused on building models that are economically sound, that serve the very poor, leaders of long-term will be i believe really shifting both the business community and government in pakistan, you're looking at a 20-30 year time horizon. so when i look 20-30 years in the future i see not only many funds but whole ecosystem of

companies, leaders, ideas that are interacting for real change. one quick example that took 10 years is in pakistan, and you can all check this out because it's very cool on the website, actually not on the website. it's even cooler, because there's an ecosystem that's building in pakistan where you have some of our fellows the left google and apple to go back either as americans or pakistanis and they're working on, one is building an alternative to youtube because the country shutdown youtube. another is building an african-american is building a vocational company to train low-income workers. then there's this region fellow who didn't go to college, and you have nice shoes i might have to get you a. on the is making beautiful handcrafted shoes. he wants to be a zap us of

pakistan. but, frankly, is designed it's a little work. this website needs a lot of work. now you have an ecosystem of other young entrepreneurs who are willing to help. the recently last week to kickstart a campaign to i even know it was happening. they kickstart campaign from pakistan for him. the goal was $15,000, which is a lot for these workers. and so far, i checked this morning, they have raised about $47,000 from people around the world. and not only are you now creating a hero in the midst of what we see in the news, isis and everything else, a hero inside and outside the country. but you're enabling a community to support the right values, work, to provide work for other people from a place that rewards what is good enough. and that's what i think, when i look at i don't really care if acumen is a billion dollar fund.

i care about an ecosystem of millions of people that are using, seeing investment as one tool. seeing leadership as the most important thing that we need to develop in ourselves. to use investment, used charity to build strong governments, get rid of corruption, to build a world that seeks support for human beings. and move from there. >> terrific. one quick point to emphasize again i think it's important for us to recognize is that jacqueline talks with a 30 year time horizon on a particular project, least a 30 year time horizon is a strategic plan for acumen and sure something like at least a 30 year conveyor belt for talented we just met somebody. this is a big deal for succession that suggests it is this notion that 50 years from now, acumen will be here and 30 and 40 or so that we might even see somebody who's stewarding some of these projects.

well done. well done. it was next? right here next. >> i am a senior advice on the u.s. department of state. i just a question about the role of innovation, education in these low income communities. to essentially unpowered these individuals to become innovators and problem solvers. have you seen effective models specifically for off-line communities that may not have access to the amazing acumen closest -- forces that are online to teach them these innovation skills? >> what do you mean by off -- >> off-line. just not online. so they don't have access to the internet your. >> in fact what's exciting is these online tools are now being used by off-line communities. but just let's talk about this idea of accompaniment. i think it's a really underrat

underrated, not only ethos is something we need to think about in the way we build our companies. i had a quick example even of young men who read my book and decided they want to create a book club across kenya. that led to the decided they wanted to create indexes, the ted company that sponsors local conferences and they now run 60 in east africa. navigates foundation is supporting these young men. when i first met them, one guy was making about $30 a month selling eggs on the street. the average education was third grade. what they need is cheerleaders. what they need is a gathering space, and what they needed someone to recognize, and institution to recognize that there has to be some safety net as well.

because too often we have the workshops and then you go back to a kind of a desolate place where if you pull your head to like, someone push it down. so how to rebuild pockets for people so that they not only are innovating but they've got a group around them who will help carry them through? i think that is way to underrated as we look for quick results and technical boxes to check. >> we have time for one more. sorry that we'll not get to to everybody, but you have been very patient. right here in the back and you will be out last question for today. wait for the mic. >> with the world bank. thank you very much. you were talking to young people, and say i'm starting to think about my retirement plans,

write? i fully share the ideals of your goals. would you recommend for a young person to put all your money into acumen, assuming it's okay to be patient and it is all right for retirement? 80% in acumen and 50% and more traditional investment, vehicles? my first question. number two, if you look at the problem in india and also look at the problem in lack of education, when do you think, when the friend the problem as a private sector concern? isn't more ngo charity? say, i see these girls who are now -- it's a cost issue, paying for the books, uniforms, et cetera. my first instinct would be okay, we will adopt a child.

[inaudible] so the broader question here is that when the friend issue as a public sector and when do you pursue problems? when you find that as public sector or charity when? >> the first question is should we give you all our money? >> the answer is yes. >> that was an easy win. >> the second question is, i actually no longer to say this is a government question, this is a private sector question. if you look at pakistan or india, 40% of the government schools are what you would call go schools. nobody shows up. the private sector is not reaching people who make a dollar a day in effective ways. there are schools within and decent people how desperate they are. they send their children to even though there's an illiterate person teaching them. so the question for me is can we use the market as a listening device, as a way to understand how we can be more efficient and

effective? but can we not lose the rest of our brains and hearts as we recognize that come as arthur said, we need every child to be educated so they can participate and be a common see the potential that exists in them. how do we use our resources both public and private to ensure that each child gets that education? if we are driven by that as our end, not i have created a private sector solution know it's the government responsibility, baby, then i think we will have a much healthier debate about those models that actually work. but if we continue to start at ideology, we're going to get where we're going. and so that's how i would look at it. >> jacqueline novogratz is a subversive as you can see. she is subverting dominant paradigms as electives in social science, about a radical approach that mixes things that

work for the people who need it most. please join me in showing our gratitude to the incomparable jacqueline novogratz applause but. >> thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> coming up, the united nations general assembly meeting to hear from the head of the u.n. ebola emergency response nation. live coverage at 11 a.m. eastern here on c-span2. >> while the british house of commons is in recess, members are attending annual party conferences. at the conclusion of the liberal democrat party conference, british deputy prime minister nick clegg outlined his party's agenda for the upcoming year and he talks about the recent scottish referenda. from glasgow, scotland, this is about one hour.

♪ ♪ [applause] >> before i say anything else, i'm sure i speak on behalf of all liberal democrats when i say that our hearts and condolences go out to the family and friends of alan henning and david haines for their tragic loss. these were good men. these were good men. in the work they did they stood for hope and compassion, the things that everyone in this room believes are more important than anything else. we have to take on the cowards who took their lives. we have to defeat their barbarity to help protect the millions of people who now live under the threat and fear of these merciless killers.

britain will not be intimidated. we will not be divided. we will not allow this brutal organization to pervert islam. and to isil we say this. all you have done is unite the people of britain, muslim and non-muslim, people of all faiths and none, around a single aim. all you have done is give the british forces who are being deployed to iraq, some of the best professionals in the world a clear, single objective. we and our allies, including in the middle east, are going to find you, we are going to destroy your bases, we will cut off your supplies, isolate you from your support, and for the sake of peace, democracy and the freedom of all those you terrorize, we are not going to stop until it's done. [applause]

and let's also take this opportunity to pay tribute to our armed forces, including the raf personnel who are being deployed over iraq, as well as the many men and women helping fight dangerous threats across the world. our immense gratitude should go without saying, but it's important we say it too. thank you. [applause] i'd like to thank all of you think everybody who's been involved in organizing such a successful conference. thanks for all of those you behind the scenes who prepared the ground for this great conference. i think they are few people other like on your behalf to give a special vote of thanks to. because when i was thinking for coming to glasgow, how was a

good use of this conference to really communicate to people in the country, that is only liberal democrats that can build a stronger economy and a more for society, and opportunity for everyone. i just really see the hard work of particular people go into to deliver that message more effectively, that we could possibly have hoped for. so on your behalf i would like to say a special thanks to two people. thank you, ed miliband. thank you george osborne. [applause] because, let's face it, let's face it, they couldn't have been more helpful even if they tried. it's as if ed miliband was wrongly before the conference and said what can i do to help the liberal democrats really undermine the point that labor can't be trusted? and i went, how about if you've got to say anything about the deficit in your speech? and he did it. or george osborne said the and said what can i do to help you really drive home the message that the conservatives can't be

trusted to create a for society? i said, what would be tremendously helpful, george, is if he singled out in your speech it would be the working age called the would pick up the tab for the mistakes made by the banks. and he did it. [applause] so thank you. thank you, ed miliband. thank you, george osborne. i don't think there's anybody in the country after this political conference season is under any illusions now that the only party in british politics that stands for a strong economy and -- very good, to deliver opportunity everyone is us, the liberal democrats. [applause] talk about on message, sounds great. [laughter] al murray, he of pub landlord fame, said a great thing on

trafalgar square in the days leading up to the scottish referendum. i was there in the crowd with thousands of others and it really stuck in my mind. he said that there is something wonderfully vague about being british. after all, he said, that's why we call ourselves british. [laughter] and it's true. you can be british as well as scottish, english, northern irish, welshish. [laughter] at the same time you can be black, white, asian, indian, african, european, mixed, not-mixed. you can be gay, straight, bi-sexual, transgender. christian, muslim, jewish, hindu, sikh, atheist. the scottish referendum was not only momentous because it reaffirmed scotland's place in

the united kingdom, and for that i will be eternally grateful for the unbelievable efforts of willie, alistair, danny, jo, mike, charles, ming, the whole scottish team. thank you, all of you. [applause] the scottish referendum was also brilliant because it forced us to hold up a mirror and think about who we are. four nations, yes, but also 64 million people with identities which are distinct yet overlapping, because these isles of ours are among the most diverse and inclusive in the world. and yet something very un-british is taking root in our politics. a growing movement of people who want to pull us apart. salmond, farage, the bitter tribalism of left and right, in

their different ways they're all doing the same thing. a growing pick-a-side politics, in a world of us-versus-them. worried about your job? your business? your children's future? your way of life? no matter, just blame europe, brussels, foreigners, immigrants, the english, the south, professional politicians, westminster, big business, anybody claiming benefits, even onshore wind farms. life is so simple when you know who or what to blame. it's so seductive and it's beguiling. that much may even be proved tomorrow, if the people of clacton give the uk independence party an mp. but resentment, the politics of fear, doesn't pay the bills or create a single job. claiming to address people's acute anxiety about the modern

world, it provides nothing but the false comfort of grievance. dressed up as the politics of hope, it is in fact a counsel of despair. why do you think i took on nigel farage in the tv debates at the european elections? because i thought it would be easy? me defending britain's membership of the eu, him bashing brussels. no, i did it for the same reason this party must now come out fighting. because someone has to stand up for the liberal britain in which we and millions of decent, reasonable people believe. [applause]

for tolerance, compassion, openness, unity, the values this party holds so dear. by the way, the really frightening thing about the preparation is the way in rehearsal in which tim was so convincingly brilliant at copying nigel. [laughter] labour won't defend those values. even after four years in opposition labour have nothing to say or have forgotten to say anything of any value on the economy. the tories won't either. we heard all we needed to know last week. compassionate conservatism is dead and buried. if the liberal democrat voice is marginalized in british politics our country will be meaner, poorer and weaker as a result. we must not and cannot let that

happen. [applause] we must make our voice heard. that's not easy these days. disenchantment and anger towards the political class is now at an all-time high and, for a lot of people, we're included in that. the british people no longer feel an automatic deference to their politicians, and that's a good thing. authority everywhere is challenged. and in what might be the least fashionable statement made by any party leader this conference season, politicians of every party have fed this growing cynicism by exaggerating and overstating what government's can do. we've all done it. i've been there. when i apologized for the disappointment and anger caused

by our inability to scrap tuition fees, i knew we could never, ever make that mistake again. and we won't. we understand that political parties must show by doing. our promise of more must be built on a record of delivery, not just words. so if you meet someone who doesn't believe we'll raise the tell them how we already raised it to 10,500. if they're not persuaded we can help young people with their travel costs to college, tell them we've created more apprenticeships than any government since the war. if they're cynical about our promises to help with young children, tell them we're the first party ever to start providing free support to two year olds across the country, tax free childcare and free school meals for infants. and all of it while fixing our broken public finances, so they can be sure we'll finish balancing the books fairly too.

danny set it all out on sunday: eliminating the deficit in the first three years of the next parliament, and then bringing debt down steadily and sustainably. running a budget that is balanced overall and, this is crucial, doing it in a way that allows us to invest in britain's creaking infrastructure too. the liberal democrats will borrow less than labour, but we'll cut less than the tories. we'll finish the job, but we'll finish it in a way that is fair. and just as we are refusing to saddle our children with mountains of debt, we are determined to hand them on a clean planet too. both parties in this government promised we would stick to our green commitments, but it has taken constant pressure from the liberal democrats, not least ed davey, to hold the tories to

their word. and i can tell you now that a sustainable environment will remain at the heart of our vision for britain's future it's not green crap to us. [applause] a plan that is credible. a party which has learnt from our mistakes. a party proud to have delivered on the commitments we made on the front page of our last manifesto, remember this? and a whole lot more. the biggest change in income tax in a generation, designed and delivered by lib dems. the biggest overhaul of our pensions system, designed and delivered by lib dems. the biggest amount of money going into early years education every year, more than any previous government, designed and delivered by lib dems.

the biggest shake-up of parental leave, revolutionizing the rules for mothers who want to work and fathers who want to stay at home designed and delivered by lib dems. the biggest ever commitment to renewable energy, designed and delivered by lib dems. and one of the biggest, proudest achievements for all of us. giving gay couples the same right to marry as everyone else designed and delivered by lib dems. [applause] that is an extraordinary record from anyone, let alone a party that had never been in government before, let alone at a time of upheaval and strife. so when you meet people who

still aren't sure about us, ask them this. how will you judge us? by the one policy we couldn't deliver in government, or by the countless policies we did deliver in government? [applause] fixing britain's shattered economy, making sure the recovery spreads to every part of the uk, cutting taxes for millions of people, investing in young children and protecting britain's schools. judge us on that record. by the four years we worked tirelessly to make sure public services are safeguarded for future generations. the environment, safeguarded for future generations too. privacy, protected. civil liberties, defended. older people, treated with dignity. and all children, from before they even start at school, given a chance, so that they can all

live out their dreams and all live their lives in full. judge us on that record. [applause] and, while this party has learnt from our mistakes, can the same be said of our opponents? ed miliband is now promising a new nirvana where everyone will be well-off, no one will be out of pocket, we don't need to cut government spending and the public finances will be miraculously fixed. sounds great. how does he intend to deliver this? well, he promised a rise in the minimum wage by 2020 which was already going to happen. a one year limit on the increase in child benefit which is already in place. and a cut in ministerial pay which this government introduced in our first week in office.

this is a man who was part of the government which wasted their chance and ruined the economy, destroying jobs and slashing incomes, and yet not a single word on the deficit. a man who was part of the government which obliterated trust in our immigration system and yet not a word on how you rebuild it. so much for a radical plan from the official opposition. david cameron and george osborne, meanwhile, say don't worry, immigration can be slashed, human rights redrawn, taxes lowered, the nhs protected, and we can have all the benefits of being in europe while opting out of the bits we don't like. every worry can be fixed with a big wave of the union jack. how do they intend to deliver that? well, they've quietly ditched their commitment to reduce net migration to tens of thousands. conservative ministers have dragged their feet in implementing lib dem border controls. they want to scrap the uner