cash transfers and new york as well. if students participated and attended schools, families would receive a small subsidy to kind of reward that good behavior. we see that in panama an other places. it's a direct transfer from government to low-income communities. what's exciting is that it's looking at the absolute poorest of the poor. the people who don't normally access services, people who may not be registered for government services, and it's providing an incentive for the government to go out and identify them. and to identify them until ways that go beyond the traditional mechanisms which include health care. if you go to the doctor on a regular basis, if your children go to school, you may receive some food subsidies. there's been discussion with indigenous communities as to how do you tweak that basket of goods to make sure it's appropriate so that you're

buying more local food products so that you're not changing communities diet, values or principles. i think one of the main areas, that's an kpampexample of publi. public aid for the u.s. and latin america has been driven by goals of good neighbor policy. good neighbor policy combined with citizen security policy. i would argue that right now our u.s., and i'm speaking as a u.s. citizen are foreign policy of latin america has been driven by citizen security in the area of narco trafficking. the reason i say that is if you look at the discussions around aid, we talk about south comm but if you're thinking about foreign aid and thinking about where, how the u.s. engages latin america countries, it's often in the military.

one of the challenges and missed opportunities is a lot of that discussion is based around a market and demand for a product that's here in the united states. it's really kind of inefficient to deal with that demand only by engaging latin america and we see the trafficking problem has gone from the south and is getting closer and closer to the north. i would encourage more strategic aid. again, i look at brazil as a wonderful example of that. i would love to hear a conversation here in the united states about how to eliminate extreme poverty in our country. i think these are bold plans and bold models.

i see these as two things that have to go together. when i started working in international development, my father is a social woerk. my family said why are you working oversaes. there's so many problems right here in the united states. why do you have to go somewhere else? i said it's the fact that i understand the situation and the problems and the grassroots perspective. i can use that lens to analyze international development problems and look at national policy decisions and look at international policy decisions and understand more or less whether they're going to work or not. there are ways you can create community and there are ways you can create community participation within large, bold policy making in an international development. again, we don't have to see the two as being mutually exclusive. i wanted to end my remarks with

a story. this is a story of a movement that comes out of latin america that doesn't get a lot of attention. it's a story that's very related to our debates and discussions on climate change. these are people who are recyclers. in argentina you have large grum group of recyclers. i don't like calling them trash pickers. there's a lot of researchers that call them trash pickers. it's valuable resources that can be used. one of the wealthiest women in china deals in recycled aluminum. these are very important, even commodity level products that these individuals are take from the trash. many of these movements and the movements that are the most strongest are in latin america.

they have been able to convene and work with local recyclers in places like india and places like china throughout all of africa to really give value to this type of work that they are doing. one of the things they have been able to push are policies. the interesting thing about recycling, there's a huge policy dimension to it. how the cities and local communities decide to manage waste. if they manage waste through local cooperatives of recyclers, they are getting a service. they're providing a source of income for individuals who may have been seen as a social problem if they weren't involved in this chain, and they are providing a service that they are not getting paid for. instead of going with a large, international waste firm, you can go with a waste firm and create tremendous benefits and re-use the terms. when you think of this idea of

grassroots interacting with government, i encourage you to look at what's happening with the recyclers movement particularly in places like brazil that supports recyclers and dialogue. we're talking about higher incomes, we're really talking about people that can earn up to two or three minimum wages. these are not low-paying jobs. these are jobs that are somewhat messy but what happens they're opportunities for their children to scale up and look at professional opportunities within the recycling field as well. i see aid as being a two-way street. i think we have an awful lot to learn from our neighbors from

the south. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, judith. now we come to the point of the program where we invite the audience to ask questions of the panelists. we have about 30 minutes because this panel ends at 11:50. i understand we are encouraged to leave the premises about that time. question. yes, sir. >> do i have to wait for the microphone. >> it's right up you. >> the previous panel was on global warming. i want to know if there's way to avoid this being a zero sum game? in other words, you talked about development. i'm aware of the fact that in

pakistan the asian development bank is thinking about maybe a huge dam which might raise carbon carbon dioxide levels. is there way around this to make it where we have development and not contribute to the problem that the previous panel spent a great deal of time on global warming. is it a zero sum game or is there way to get around that? >> did everybody hear the question? the question is is there way to get around global warming and sustain economic growth and not contribute to global warming? is that fair? >> i just had a conversation with an environmentalist about a week ago and a fascinating model to look at pine resins in mexico and other parts of latin america

as a sustainable source of revenue for communities. one of the things he said that i thought was very wise and i think i've heard it from other individuals is that if it's between feeding your family and a tree, the tree always loses. i think one of the things we have to really create our opportunities that are sustainable where communities have adequate information to make good decisions. i think that understanding and really giving a financial value to biodiversity. in a place like latin america, you have some of the richest biodiversity in the world. certainly indigenous communities are aware of that. they understand the notion of seven generations out and how you need to protect these

resources. if push comes to shove and communities don't have way to eat, you're looking at some real significant challenges to the environment and specifically to biodiversity. you're bringing up the whole energy and resource issue in the region. i think we need be much more con conscious about our consumption. we need to plug in and have more and more sources of energy pm i've seen some innovations in haiti that's fantastic. it started before the albuquerqearthquake and has taken off now.

the kids can power up. they've been able to take that technology and now there's, they are being used the street lights. the only thing i would re-enforce is i think the economic growth model that our country has pursued with

increasing wealth and what have you is the biggest things are by adjusting our own lifestyle. i think that's what we have to be looking at. >> yeah, coming to the zero-sum question, i think you really get in trouble if you frame this as a zero-sum debate because then what you get is quite legitimate push back saying, well, you know, of course we're going to have cell phones and of course we're going to build roads and build dams if we need energy. to understand that, there's no getting around progress from the developed countries on climate change. that has nothing to do with rich country, poor country. it has to do with is there a bigger incentive.

is there a bigger political incentive than to provide electricity. that's a basic sort of question about how willing we are as a global community to deal with climate in a way that changes the incentive. that has very litted to do with how developed or underdeveloped you are. >> next question. >> i am very pro-altruism and stories like elizabeth are very important but i question foreign aid treats the symptom rather than the cause. i was curious to your responses. >> the question is does foreign aid treat the symptom rather than the cause? is that fair?

okay. >> i think there's a lot of validity to what you're saying. there's economic disparity. social and economic justice which are the root causes of some of the issues. gender and equality. i see in the past couple of years a lot more focus on addressing some of those root causes and as some of the developing countries gain leadership and take ownership for their own problems there's a lot more focus on the root proble problems. >> the analysis is a really great one because you, while you want to be conscious of root causes and thinking about what you can do about them, in many ways your best long term solutions is empowering folks to go out with their own root

causes. this is something that we lose the string of. how do you help people empower themselves? basic education, basic human dignity. that's a child that has the opportunity to be more empowered and go after root problems of his or her choice. >> i think also if you look at some of the development literature in terms of what motivated communities, often you'll see it's a combination of a crisis that will move local communities. kind of a couple of inspired actors and kind of good political conditions or some openings. i think this notion of kind of root cause, to some extent, it sounds terrible to say but create different, there's many

reasons why there's inequality or poverty. i think you can address multiple root causes, maybe through getting rid of the symptoms. we talk about aid and sometimes i think cynically if we just gave all the money that we're spending in foreign assistance to low-income communities, what would happen. giving the money within certain context of training individuals and having them involved in t strategic planning exercises. if the symptoms are extreme poverty, to some extent the cash transfer is an example of how encouraging healthy behavior, you get the money right their hands and they have proven to be responsible about how they use the money. part of the reason is we understand looking at the role of women that you give the

conditional cash transfers to women and the women are the ones that go out and make sure their families are healthy and taken care of. >> just following in on that, research has shown, if you want to identify one thing, you do and that's educating young girls. >> yes, ma'am. >> the other day i heard a program and a man was discussing population growth literacy. he talked about brazil trying to do this literacy and has had some progress with it. i remember from the '60s there was a whole population growth and it blew up in our faces because it seemed like it was repressive from our point. i wondered what your thoughts

were on that. >> p the question has to do with what are the panels ideas on operation growth literacy with respect to growth. >> i think carrie's last point was relevant to this. when women are given access to professional opportunities population declines. it's happened everywhere. it's kind of a fact. i think it's an interesting concept and has a lot to do with the empowerment of women. you'll have control of fertility. looking at the example that was given. she went out an took control of her health care. these are decisions that women need to be empowered to make and fertility is very much in the

realms and control of women. >> i want to invite the room to take a minute and look around at each other. it's mostly women. this is my fifth panel so far at this conference. because my day job is mostly to do with quote, unquote hard national security. i spoke on panel op nuclear weapons and turkey. this is the only panel that will i'm on with two other women. this is the only panel i've been on with this many women in the audience. that tracks what judith said about this as a career field. that's wonderful and terrific and leading to really wonderful things and understanding the importance of empowerment of women in every area that you could name, but what that also means is that my field, the

national security field looks way too much like it did 20 years ago. it's much better. i wouldn't have been running a non-profit 20 years ago. when we talk about why there isn't money for aid, why you have a fight within an administration about what does aid matter, what its role is, how we think about who we are in the world, who are the reporters who cover the issues, who are the academics, by the way. this divide is mirrored in academia. i would challenge those of you that are young that this field isn't the only place you can work on them. it's critically important that we don't settle into some unofficial where men make more and women clean you have afterwards. i'm very concerned about that.

>> yeah. i was on another panel on conflict resolution and we talked about this exact phenomenon. it's not enough to have women involved. they need be in positions of power. 17% of our congress are women. 20% of afghanistan parliament are women. enough said. >> also just very briefly, if you want to get into international development, i encourage you to look at economics and economics models. there's a great organization called wise. i encourage all of you to look up wise. it's a fantastic organization.

>> there's another organization represented here. it's called white house. their goal is to put women in the white house and elected office. that's another thing to consider. >> upstairs. let me see if we can do that. we have a question from the gentleman in the back row. can i get to you after him? here he comes. i can't really see who is asking the question. >> you mentioned of critique of aid from the left and you thought it was incorrect, would you expand, please. >> i didn't say i thought it was incorrect. there's two critiques from the left. there's a domestic critique and

international. you have people from traditional aid countries that are saying no thank you. wooe we'd be better off without it. carrie referenced this problem but you've had increasingly strong voices from traditional aid recipient countries that say you distort our markets, you take away our power of choice, your impose your priorities on us. you destroy our culture traditions in the name of scale. fra and you try out ideas on us that

don't work. you send us your rejects. frankly, we would have been better off without you. that i think reason is overblown but it's important to hear and take seriously when we think about the kind of large scale, quick, let's run in there and put on a show in the born and build democracy of foreign aid that comes naturally to americans and not for bad reasons. there's many aspects that don't come from ill-will but do play out on the ground that have been damaging. this is a critique we need to listen to. at the sam time you get the critique from the left that judith mentioned getting from

her family. as i said it's really important that country x have a functioning civil society where people feel confident that if their house is burning down, someone will put it out. my problem with the domestic left is it tends to shade over to where we shouldn't be spending money overseas. to my mind, one of the things it means to be progressive is realize we're all connected and that especially as wealthy and powerful as we are, we don't have the choice of taking the ron paul approach and saying the rest of the world can look after itself. >> question from the gentleman

against the wall. >> grassroots policy. i'm not aware of what that is. >> i mentioned the grassroots development. you take local ideas and local community approaches. there's a big discussion about this bottom of the pyramid that's also a little bit of a grassroots approach that the private sector is beginning to look at. how can you provide services to these people who make up the bottom of the pyramid, which is significant. it's not grassroots policy but approaches. >> yes, ma'am.

>> use of economic models and the importance of those models. are rebeginning to re-define the paradigm of how we measure proverty based on new or economic models in we are always thinking about the dollar and a person's take home income. a lot of communities, poor communities of the world don't think much about dollars. they think about whether or not they have must have land to grow their food and i'm just wondering if we're trying to broaden our paradigm. >> is there a need to broaden our definition of poverty or change it so it's not measured on individual income? is that fair enough? >> i think one of the challenges is when we're trying to make

comparisons across countries, across kcontext and countries. we do tend to oversimplify. someone mentioned within the context of this conference a discussion on the blue ten. i don't think she's in the audience here but she was involved with the bhutan happiness discussion. there's a challenging of the models. i don't want us to lose sight of having good health care, one or two hour distance from your home and having access to clean, safe drinking water and having access to basic education, these are things i see as universal rights.

dwoen we don't want to have local models. most development practictioners are aware of the limitations of the models. they really needed to push policy to be able to say that this country is doing better and things are moving forward. it just makes governments feel ready good about their progress or gives, put a spotlight on situations that are particularly dire. for example, dwe do a lot of wok with indigenous people with a lot of gaps. you do kind of meet some of those measures. >> coming from your discussion of bhutan, i think we assume the traditional assumes you have to be rich to be happy or you have tow be a certain level of rich and i don't think that's necessarily true and this gross nati