vantage point. beginning on my mead scenter, o my right, you recognize her, the president of liberia. [ applause ] >> to my left, my mediate left, the president of kosovo. [ applause ] >> on the far right, my far

right is the former president of ireland, mary robinson, she is today the president of the mary robinson foundation for climate justice. >> the former prime minister of new zealand. [ applause ] >> so it is an extraordinary group and i want to begin with a kind of unconventional question before we get into the topic that we are discussing this morning. i want to ask the leaders to give us the heads of state a fact or two about your country, the people of your country that

maybe many of us don't know because we haven't been there. president ellen johnson, i'm going to start with you. >> we had a conflict resulting in a dysfunctional in sti tution, a lot of dispair. the country was in a lot of

despair lack of confidence and hope. but one today, one sees a future, a future in which they can participate and i might say one that has the ambition to become a post conflict success story. [ applause ] >> wonderful. president. president yayaga, what about kosovo, tell us something about it. >> kosovo for the ones that don't have so much information is a country that had a war in conflict about 13 years ago. and as we are sitting today here we are just celebrating 13 years of the end of the conflict and war and the troops which has been maintaining the peace but with the international community

plain and tremendous role of the process of the state of building for my country. this past 13 years has not been easy particularly in the beginning trying to get over from the consequences that were left out of the war. so for the first years, has been difficult times with trying to cope with all of this. at the same time trying to build the country in order to overcome this consequence much quicker and have stabilized the process in place.

well educated and well trained, so it is an obligation for me and the leaders within my country to provide a better future for them so i will not find the peace for myself and other leaders before i set up the proper foundation, so this population will have a better future.

i come from milawi, 60% live under the poverty line. one thing about the people is that they are resilient and clear about what they want to achieve. what i love most about the people is because they were cleave about what they wanted for themselves in the 48 hours where they elected a woman and

some parts of the world are still struggling to get a woman elected but here i am. [ applause ] >> i come from a small country best known for being peaceful, but we too have a history going back to the 19th century when after a treaty signed between the in dig nus people, when the treaty wasn't respected and in fact a civil war broke out. and the people fought that war and it lead to confiscation and a lot of discrimination over many years. i guess the last 40 years new

zealand has been preoccupied with the restoration of dignity. >> finally, the former president of ireland, addressing climate justice. mary robinson. >> i was growing up in the west of ireland and we,000 thought e west. i mentioned passion and i put it in terms of the fact that i think women tend to be more intergeneration

intergenerational. i have four grandchildren who will be in their 40s. why do they not understand the impact of climate and the kind of issues we are going to be talking about. in other words there is a need for leadership and i think in the 21st century a lot of it has to be women's leadership. we have more of a sense of purpose when we get into the positions of leadership when we heard. and the issues that we are discussing in a beyond frontiers way and are issues that are needing to be dealt with and that is i think our challenge. >> thank you. [ applause ]

we have heard from the areas in the region. tell us a bit about how you see the main hurdles that a country faces in moving from conflict to post conflict, and to continue on a path to democracy. in managing the post conflict country, almost everything is a p priority. you have to tackle problems

giving them hope and enables them to know that they have a stake and making them productive citizens again. more than budgets, and money matters, you are saying the high expectations, it is the job of a leader that think about that and address that. absolutely and that is difficult in the environment when patience runs out. but you need to go beyond that and to be able to transform people and ensure that all the things you have done to mobilize

the resources and improve their welfare that is the challenge. >> what would you add to this question of the main challenges facing you and other leaders post conflict? >> i have to agree with the president saying that, actually, there is not any unified formula on how to address the matters. but the community has to be a part of every process from the day one. they have to feel that level of the confidence with the leadership but have to gather up that soul of the responsibility and the owner.

if it is not possible or accepted or relieved by the community from my own country, we have a lot of the progress. kosovo has been viewed as a success story but still, if i go back and see 13 years ago, how far we have gone, we could have been much further today if we have done and included the community and if we made the population a part of the process. for example, in our country, all of the people from the highly education and other wars has not been a part of the process of the development of the country. they have been employed by

international companies, but that is a short-term solution and not a long-term solution. i think the best solution is the combination of the community and the local leadership and partners if we want to get the best of the process of bgetting accepted and being accepted. >> how do you see the most challenging piece of this transition from conflict to post? >> in malawi, i think the problem is that the whole economy was near collapse. >> near collapse. >> yes. >> so people were living under difficult conditions. so the hope was their expectation that things were going to change. they expect that change to come

immediately. it is what you do in that transition that matters. i think for me what i have done is to ensure that even to calm down the tensions that existed was to choose a party made up of all parties. if people were told the truth, they will stand with you. in my case, i have worked with the people for 30 years. and i believe that leadership is a love affair. you must fall in love with people and the people must fall in love with you. >> and we will remember that line. leadership is a love affair with your people. >> if they want to trust you and love you, they will stand with

you. especially in difficult times. in malawi. this is the time. the time we are trying to recover. we must very quickly move from aid to trade. that is difficult in a country where a country that has depended on aid to the tune of 40% to begin to tell the people to say we must change the way we do business and the way we think in order for that to happen. these are the steps that i think we should take the i think we must take them together and to give the people a vote is critical. >> and what about sending the government up? >> i think it is important that at a time like this in my country where we have tried to get back on track, and the value

our culture by 40%, it means that most people will pay the price. particularly, the people will feel the pinch. therefore, why they make that sacrifice as they move with you through the future. you must make the sacrifices. for me to get to zambia to see my brother, it takes me an hour by plane, without a plane it takes two days. and so when you tell them you are going to sell the plane, they know what you are talking about. that you want to get down with them and pay the price and suffer together with home. [ applause ]

>> at mdministrator clark, as h of the program you are dealing with leaders in many parts of the world. what would you add to this conversation and where the focus should be? >> i think our leaders have made important points and i think the first is to build confidence. in these situations everything has to be done at once. people need to understand the path that is being follows. the more inclusion the better. the more engagement the better. there are institutions to be built and democracy doesn't put food on the table. that can take longer to build confidence but it will be the key to everybody doing better in

the longer term. so i couldn't stress enough this engagement with the people. sometimes the story about selling the plane and the fleet of mercedes, when i tweeted this, i got a reaction of there is a woman in charge. and it really is highly commendable what you did. >> president robinson you have clearly had experience in this area of conflict. what one thing would you add to this? >> i would say that we need that confidence and closeness in the community. even this conference, to have others listeni ining in, helen,

are linking out to the civil society and the business community. i see that with michelle she is setting up links of women in the world leadership and regional level to try and create these partnerships. and that's i think very much part of how we can try and show more willingness to address issues. but a number of us are going to the rio conference, rio +20 very shortly. and it's very disappointing to see the preparation for rio. the lack of real commitment given the urgency of the problems. and given that, you know, we have a world of 7 billion. the 6 billionth child is about 18 years old. in six years eel have another billion. and then we have climate which preoccupies me more and more. i know this is a country where there are different views and different lobbies on the issue. but we have to understand in the countries in africa particular is that climate is affecting people. it's affecting development.

everybody knows it. and we have to do something about it urgently. >> you know, that's a reminder that there are so many issues, so many balls in the air that you have to keep moving as the leader of any one of these countries. president jahjaga, what about getting back to what president sirleaf johnson said a moment ago about everything is important. how do you prioritize when you want to maintain a strong democracy. you want to maintain security, however you define it. you're thinking about development. but you don't want to be dependent on the rest of the world forever. how do you decide what is most important? how do you make those decisions? >> actually, there is not an easy answer to this question. because everything in the beginning of after the end of the war and the conflict, everything is emergent. everything is a priority. everything has to take time at the same time.

but i am a strong believer that meeting the short-term challenges will lead you up to the most sustainable countries development. and i'll go with a few of examples as my country has been taking the lead of. but before i take this example, he will go back to the community. that community needs to see that the country of which they're inheriters is their own country. it is on their service. and the best combination, it is their joint responsibility for the proper success or for to make it as a joining success. just immediately after the conflict, together with international community, the local institutions has taken up the leadership in accordance to the efforts that has been made back in 13 years ago to have tried to set out the preconditions of the proper life of the people.

which is getting back into the proper function, the 100,000 houses which has been destroyed. also having setting up the proper conditions for the refugees which were about 60% of the population has been forced out of the country. to set up the proper condition or elementary conditions for the people to return and to have the food and supply necessary for day to day living. immediately, and parallel to that, and what has also made our country become as one of the post-conflict, the success story, it is also trying to solve the security dilemma, going immediately with building, rebuilding, restructuring, and reforming of the security element from the security force and also from the security, from the police organization, where both of those has been used as a

tool of the repression where the community had not so much of the trust, or better saying, they had a fear towards the uniform, no matter being from the military or being from the police side. and that has by granting their political control and establishing the state monopoly of the force and the public security. at the same time, parallel to this has been started the process of reconstruction of the political system that we would be establishing together with the other local actors, which would be meeting the needs of the country, will be fitting to the circumstances of the countries, but at the same time will allow to establish the legitimate government based on the power-sharing models. so these are all the preconditions that will lead you

from the short-term solution or the challenges addressing immediately to have a democracy develop, to have the security level, and in order to start building up the process of the state building. >> and president sirleaf johnson, i'm turning back your comment from a minute ago back to you. when you say everything is important, and yet you still have to prioritize. you have to focus security, democracy broadly speaking, thinking about development and moving away from the need for development. how do you make those decisions? how do you -- how do you organize, how do you approach it? >> it is always a challenge trying to find the right balance between the promotion of sustainable development based upon growth and the conventional methods of achieving that

growth. and the promotion of democracy based upon an open society in which accountability, transparency, participation are the key elements. if one wants to, one has to find a way to reinforce both of those concepts. and that's always difficult. putting one to work, changing the work ethics in an environment in which having a society long suffered to be refugees where the entitlement and dependancy become part of the norm of behavior. the two must reinforce each other. that's always the debate as to whether democracy catalyzes development or development catalyzes democracy. in our own experience, we have both, but they're bound to be

contradictions because there are times when you must push the basic things of getting the hard way, getting the infrastructure fixed, getting the institutions functioning, instituting measures that fight corruption and promote accountability, and then a society that feels that has long been neglected, the needs should be met and they should have the freedom to choose, and you must allow that freedom to choose. it's -- but we chose the path of trying to first of all stabilize the situation, get the fundamentals in place, while at the same time allowing a certain amount of freedom in a society in a certain amount of participation and accountability. but that does create tension, and the tension reflects itself, as i mentioned before, in the youth that feels neglected, and that has a sense of entitlement

and in some cases a sense of disappointment because their lives have not changed quickly while you address the fundamentals. >> it's interesting. i think that's the second time you have mentioned the youth and the concern you feel you must have about how they see the future. president banda, is there a way, is there one right formula as you think about balancing all of these priorities? >> yes. what i have done in malawi in done is six weeks. >> it does take some gall on my part to ask her these questions when she has only been there less than two months. >> the whole world has asked how do you have money to do so much in six weeks.

but i think it was necessary. and as i said earlier, it's about the people who are prepared for change. so it's been a little bit easier for me to make some of the broad decisions that i've had to make. what i have found that has helped, that is helping is the quick wins within the short-term because that helps to give people hope. in my case, four days after i got into office, i established the presidential initiative on maternal health and safe motherhood. and then the second one was the initiative, presidential initiative on poverty and education. and that was deliberate, because i wanted people to continue to hold on to hope because i knew these are the two areas that they're very concerned about. as you know, we are the second