ROW Episode 22

In this episode I engage in conversation with Vasu Mohan co-author of a report issued by the International Foundation of Electoral Systems (IFES) on ways to safeguard the electoral rights of environmentally displaced persons.

Transcript

Sovaida: 0:08

Hello and welcome to Reimagining Our World, a podcast dedicated to envisioning a better world and to infusing hope that we can make the principled choices to build that world. In this episode, I engage in conversation with Vasu Mohan, co author of a report issued by the International Foundation of Electoral Systems, also known as IFIS, on ways to safeguard the electoral rights of environmentally displaced persons. Today, I have a special treat for you, which I will get to in a second, a wonderful guest who's going to engage in some, what I hope will be stimulating, dialogue with me. I just want to put today's episode into context. As you all know, our world faces many challenges. One of the goals of this show has been to demonstrate that we have two different options in how we choose to respond or react to these challenges. We can either feel helpless, feel anxious, and therefore become paralyzed and ineffective. Or, we can stay focused, determined, be filled with enthusiasm, a vision of where we want to be, and work with complete determination and in a methodical fashion to get us from where we are to where we want to be. In other words, we are all at choice. Where the world is today, even though we may not like it, is not where it needs to continue to be in the future. At any point, we can change our future. The other purpose of this show is to inject hope into all of us. So many people feel disheartened in the world today. My goal in inviting my guest today and in the future, future guests, is to give us all insight into the fact that individuals around the world are doing some amazing things, doing wonderful work at the grassroots levels and within their own organizations to make a better world. And we can all watch and be inspired and learn from them. So I want to now invite my guest, Vasu Mohan. Welcome to you. Vasu is not just an amazing human being who has done wonderful work, which I will tell you about in a second here, but is also a very dear friend. So it's a double blessing to have him here today. I really look forward to our conversation. Just to tell you a little bit about Vasu, he currently serves as Senior Global Advisor for Conflict Displacement and Minority Rights for the International Foundation for Electoral Systems called IFES, I F E S. He previously served as IFES's regional director for Asia Pacific programs, and the last two decades he's worked on democracy, governance, and human rights programming, with a focus on post conflict elections and democratic inclusion. Vasu has done a lot. Amongst his accomplishments is that he has a master's degree in environmental science which directly links to the topic of our conversation today. He himself is a refugee from the long civil war in his native Sri Lanka and in his work he's collaborated with a wide variety of international organizations as well as election commissions, human rights commissions, inclusion organizations, media, youth groups, peace builders, and faith groups. There is a lot more and I will put it in the show notes but if you go to ifest. org, basically you can learn more, both about the organization and about Vasu Mohan's work. So welcome Vasu.

Vasu: 4:04

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Sovaida: 4:06

Oh, not at all. So one of the reasons that we decided we would have you on the program today is that you have co authored recently in April of this year, a report through IFES that is entitled Electoral Rights of Environmentally Displaced Persons. What I was hoping to do is to unpack with you some of the not just the data because anyone can read the report, but to take a step back and look at what we can learn from what you've done and how inspirational it is, how creative it is, and how long term thinking it is. Let's begin with the first question that I'm curious about, and our viewers will be curious about. Could you articulate the challenge that you were seeking to address in this report?

Vasu: 4:57

Thank you, Sovaida, for this opportunity to converse and explore this topic that is both dear to our hearts, but also one that we ought to pay a lot of attention to. This paper was supposed to be a launching point for a conversation. It never sought to be a comprehensive document because of range of research that has happened, and it is very politically charged conversation. It's also an existential conversation. What I was hoping to do with this paper is that, as an organization, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, IFES, where I work, we have been working for the last three decades on political empowerment, on electoral rights of people around the world, and many of whom, have significant challenges accessing those rights. So that's a stream of work that we have been doing. And in that context, we've looked at people who have been displaced from their homes within their country, or people who have had to flee countries of their origin as refugees or displaced people, conflict displaced people like I had to when I was young. So what kind of political rights do they have? Then parallel to this, there's been a whole range of research that has been happening around climate change and climate displacement, which is becoming greater, the scale is increasing day by day. And what I sought to do with this paper was to bring those two streams of thought together. There are, people who are going to be displaced significantly over the next decade and years to come. How do we get them the access to their fundamental human rights, one of which is the right to have a say on who governs you and how you are governed. And to have, say, in, decision making that's going to directly impact, your life. So that's where this paper began, is to look at this gap of it's not just collecting data about who's displaced and how they're displaced, and providing them humanitarian, support, which is essential. But how do you go beyond that and begin to see them as protagonists? In their own decisions that impact their own lives. So that's what I was trying to achieve with that paper, and hopefully this will be the first of many conversations that will come out of it.

Sovaida: 7:09

Fantastic. Yes. So as I understand it, there are three categories, of displaced people. People who are displaced within their countries, people who have to leave their countries, and then there are entire nation states that are disappearing underwater. So all those people will have to leave. As you said, it's bad enough to have to leave your home, but then not to have any say in your future because your electoral rights have been taken away is like adding insult to injury in a sense. So Vasu, what kind of numbers are we talking about here? What is the scope of this problem?

Vasu: 7:43

So the most recent number that has come out is that by at the end of 2020 last year 82. 4 million people were forcibly displaced from their homes. So involuntary displacement. Not all of those people were displaced because of climate related issues. Probably it's a combination of climate and conflict. Just to give you a scale of what 82. 4 million people is, the population of New York City is 8. 4 million. So it's 10 times the population of New York City. You get a sense of how large that number is. Digging a little bit deeper, we find that in 2019, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, IDMC, put out some data where they say that three times as many people were displaced in 2019, due to natural disasters, many of which were exacerbated due to climate change, than conflict. It gives you a sense that a lot of the displacement that we saw in the past were political or violent conflict related, but now as we go into the future, this may be, environmental disasters, and that also creates its own conflict. So it's not that these are completely separate. As natural resources become sparse, as places become completely uninhabitable or hostile for communities to live and thrive, then that creates displacement. So it's quite a large scale. And some estimates say that, by 2050, there might be as large as 200 million people who could be displaced, around the world, a combination of internal displacement within boundaries, cross border displacement, but also entire countries may become uninhabitable.

Sovaida: 9:18

I had been looking at some numbers that the International Organization for Migration had put out, and they say most likely 200 million by 2050, but it could range between 25 million and 1 billion. which is a whole lot of people, right? And climate change seems to be accelerating a lot faster than we had thought. So who knows, in fact, what's going to happen in 2050. Just again, for our viewers to put this into context, this year, just in the United States, where many of us live alone, in the southwest, we've been experiencing like the worst drought that we've had in 20 years. And many farmers, for instance, are choosing to sell cows because they can't get a hold of the 50 gallons of water a day they need to feed them, and so they're having to engage in water rationing. Lake Mead, which is a reservoir for three states in the southwest, is at its lowest point since it was first filled in 1936. This isn't just something that's happening to people at the other end of the world. I just wanted to drive that point home. But we ourselves are likely to start seeing migration of people away from the southwest to other parts. Why should we care, Vasu? To put it very bluntly, why should we and the viewers care about what happens to these people who are going to be internally or externally displaced?

Vasu: 10:44

Part of it, follows from the previous point that you were making, that climate change impact is happening across the world. Our developed countries and countries that have, or even people within countries that are so called developing countries or third world countries, setting aside all the problems with these labels, money, comfort, socioeconomic strata can buffer some of the impact of this. But no one is really safe until everybody is safe, right? So there's two principles that I was looking at. One is that we are deeply interconnected. Climate change does not respect borders. These borders are not natural. So these are, human made divisions. So cross border situations are going to be significant. Pollution, for example. Sometimes, you see these waves of pollution that go from one country to another. So I was in South Korea sometime back, and there was this yellow haze that was in the air. People said, this is pollution that's coming from certain industrialized areas, from China. So there's that connectedness is one. And the second thing is the pandemic has recently shown us that truly no one is safe until everyone is safe, because these diseases spread. These impacts of climate change moves across. It's a separate whole good conversation about, deforestation and its relationship, climate change and the pandemic. These are all really connected. And the other issue also is that as people are forced to flee these areas, they are going to come into, neighboring countries, developed countries they're going to try to come into countries that are relatively safer. So we're going to be faced with this direct connection that if we as a whole as a humanity, as a whole, the community of nations as a whole, don't address this it is going to impact us. You had a great analogy in one of your earlier episodes. By the way, I love listening to your these podcasts. I think you shared this from a friend of yours. It's like multiple rooms in a ship and each room is trying to run with a different set of rules, but the ship is one collective ship in the ocean. It really applies to the situation very directly that national sovereignty and protecting just our own nations can only have so much impact in this. So I think we should care because this is a problem that is going to affect all of us. Also there's a moral responsibility that industrialized nations and, people whose footprints ecological footprints are much higher. We have a greater responsibility to address because our actions are what are pushing this climate change and the devastating impact that we are seeing.

Sovaida: 13:13

That's so interesting. As you were speaking, I was thinking of an example that I had done a lot of reading about and research about. I hadn't realized. I'd done a lot of writing and thinking about the conflict in South Syria, right? And all the problems that it spawned, between terrorism, having a fertile ground for ISIS, to the refugee crisis it spawned, and with refugees, so many of them going not just to neighboring countries of Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, and so on, but into the EU and how that had the trickle effect of a rise in populist governments and xenophobia nationalism. What I hadn't realized is that experts believe that the whole conflict in Syria that led to the civil war was triggered by climate change, by five years of drought. And that was what made people unhappy and wanting to rise up against the system. It was that uprising that the leader, Mr. Assad, was trying to quell by using chemical weapons and whatnot that led to all of these other consequences. So even though we may be sitting in Europe or America and thinking,"Oh, we're safe when there are climate change effects somewhere else and people are displaced. Why should I care?" At, bottom if just looking at self interest, because these people are going to get up and they're not going to want to stay in their places. It's untenable, right? If they're being shot at, if 40 percent of the people of Syria are displaced, they're going to go somewhere. And with climate change, you have the reduction, it seems, in water resources. You've got the salinization of water. You've got less land on which to grow food. So you have less food. The water gets salty. You have to move away from the shores. You've got floods. You've got cyclones. The Economist was just saying that the leader of North Korea has openly said that they are doing really badly in terms of food. This is unprecedented for him to actually get up and say something so openly because they've had three cyclones this year already and so much rainfall from climate change that the crops have failed, so they don't have food. Even the food that they were able to grow, they don't have. So as you point to, this interconnectedness is so deep and real that we have to care because our own lives and quality of life seem to be at stake, in addition to everything else you said about disease and insecurity. Could you tell us a little bit about the threats to insecurity and conflict?

Vasu: 15:46

The Security Council had a resolution 2349 a couple of years ago. And they were talking about the area around Lake Chad. Niger, Nigeria, Chad, so those, that area. And they specifically talked about Climate change as a threat multiplier. As you rightly point out, another example is obviously, Syria. So when there is scarcity of resource, politics and power really intertwine and climate becomes a threat multiplier. So places that were already, in a lack, there was a lack of stability or, security complications, climate change will, exacerbate it. In other places, climate change might actually cause the insecurity. And in a very much lower than national international politics level, when people are forced to move from one area to another area, they're going into an area that already probably has its own set of issues. And then they have, people are coming in and they are going to need the same access to education and health and resources. And the host communities, unless policymakers do a very good job of integrating this, the host communities are not going to automatically welcome people. Even though we do see that communities do and there is a lot of goodwill. I remember myself having moved from one place to another that people, there's a lot of human kindness, but there's also a sense of if there is scarcity, if it's not well planned, that could create a conflict between the host community and people who are coming in. One example of where this does work well, I recently heard that in the country of Papua New Guinea, in Bougainville, in the autonomous region of Bougainville, one climate displacement situation where the church leaders had, provided land for the people who were displaced. And this really helped mitigate this resource competition. It's a really good way of sort of faith based organizations truly doing what they're supposed to be doing is looking after being their brother's keeper. And so they were able to create that kind of environment that tends to be the exception that I suggest that because there are ways this can be handled. But that sets up an inherent conflict and how we resolve that as national policymakers, community leaders, and of course, the international community as a whole will make a major difference in how that conflict is mitigated.

Sovaida: 18:02

So interesting. As you're talking about Papua New Guinea, I was contrasting it with an example I'd read about in France, where there was a very small community that they had been very welcoming of the migrants a number of years ago. And then at some point they completely did a 180 degree flip. A journalist had gone in and had asked them what happened? And the mayor of the city said, look, I'm now in a position where if you go into the classrooms in our schools, the majority of children in the classrooms are now these migrants. They don't speak the language, they don't know the culture, and so our teachers are not able to teach our own students because we have to spend so much effort in just helping these others just to understand some of the basics. So he says, I simply am no longer in the position, he says, it's one thing to have 20%, 30%, but once you get to 60, 70 percent of the kids in the classroom being migrants, so it just highlights exactly what you're talking about. The absence of planning the inability to integrate effectively so that it's a win for both sides. But this is what's so exciting about your report. Before we get there, I want to say that what happens in your view? So let me back up and say, what we seem to do as a human race is that we wait for disaster to strike. It's something we've talked a lot about on this show, right? Being reactive, always been in reactive mode. Waiting for disaster to strike and then trying to put out the fire, but never totally putting it out, letting the embers continue to go until the next wind of disaster comes along and fans the flames back up. What is the consequence of dealing with these kinds of problems, like the displacement of folks because of climate change doing it reactively? Can you outline what you've seen?

Vasu: 19:57

Yeah, I think often and this is one of the points that the paper does make is that with environmental displacement, we can already predict, we already know what areas are at risk, who are vulnerable and not engaging them in the planning, and not planning for this collectively, bringing all the key decision makers together is going to involve in last minute situations. Are they going to the right places? Have things, places been prepared? Is there sufficient funding? Are there sufficient resources, to address that? And I think it does create that conflict. It exacerbates that conflict. And on the flip side, when there is planning, wide consultation, and really international and national, parliamentarians, decision makers and scientists and, and humanitarian agencies come together and really plan for these situations, then I think, there could be a range of solutions, some of whom we may not have even thought about. And I think we are entering into a new phase, a new era of migration that is at a scale that we have probably never experienced. And therefore, we have to plan for that collectively. And one part point that paper really makes is precisely this planning ahead, but also makes this importance of consultation, of bringing a range of people together to consult and plan in a transparent, inclusive, open manner, but with real fundamental respect for human rights and dignity of all people who are involved, people who potentially may be displaced, people who are in the middle of displacement, themselves experiencing displacement and also host communities and really looking at all of these people and involving all of their voices in planning. And particularly looking at people who are being displaced, not as recipients of aid or humanitarian services alone, but also people with tremendous talent and significant insights about their own lives and their own communities. Sometimes when displacement happens and people move to a different culture or a different community, the host community's culture may be completely different. We have to think and prepare for these situations. And also we know that any other situation, not a conflict, political violence, can be people who are already vulnerable are made more vulnerable or more at risk. Women, could be ethnic, religious, linguistic minorities. It could be older people, people with disabilities, all of these groups of people could be, further marginalized or put in harm's way. And how do we both protect and support these voices, but also engage them upfront? Particularly with natural disasters and people with disabilities, they're going to be disproportionately impacted. So how do you, bring their voices to the table? And a particular word here also about indigenous communities, they have lived with nature and have really been the protectors of their environment for such a long time. And they are going to be disproportionately impact and are already disproportionately impacted, but they also have knowledge and wisdom of how to avert some of these disasters. And the earth is a really a self healing, organism as a whole. We allow it to. So that tapping into that indigenous wisdom is also going to be really important. So it's not just planning. A few people go behind the scenes and, plan something and then implement it. It's got to be participatory. It's got to respect human rights and dignity and use all of the collective talents that we have around, in our communities.

Sovaida: 23:31

This was really one of the things that struck me. A couple of things struck me very forcefully about the report, and that's why I was excited about having you on today. One is that it does something, again, we've talked a lot about here on Reimagining Our World, the need to be proactive and to see the end in the beginning. We know what the consequences are of climate change and all the costs of not acting early. That we've already talked about. It also meshes with what the purpose of those in power is, right? So we've talked a lot about power and authority, the role of them being to create the conditions that allow all of us to actualize our potential both as individuals and as groups, as nations, as ethnic groups, is because we each have something, as you so well put it, unique to offer. That was one thing that struck me. The second thing that struck me was that there seemed to be some top principles that have guided your work. And I don't know if this was done consciously or not, but I could see the thread of these as I read through the report. I'll just throw out a couple that I think you've already mentioned and then ask you whether you did this mindfully or whether it just so happens to have ended up this way. One was an understanding of our oneness as human beings and our interconnectedness. We make plans not only for our own nations, but we make plans even nationally at the national or local level for the whole world. Because as you said, climate change respects no boundaries, nor does migration, right? Displaced persons respect no boundaries either. The other is to have a proactive approach, which we've already talked about. The third is the principle of consultation that you mentioned that you just talked about. This is really critical involving stakeholders, including faith based organizations, and giving a voice to the voiceless, right? The displaced folks. Another is the need for cooperation and collaboration, right? Between nations involved, whose people have to flee their neighbors, international organizations, NGOs, local, national, international. Integrity. Tell me a little bit about integrity. I was fascinated when you and I had a conversation the other day about it. Unpack what that word means to you and also tell us whether these principles were mindfully applied and coming up with some recommendations.

Vasu: 25:57

So definitely these principles were intentional and things that I and many people have learned through our own careers and our own work trying to, put international human rights principles into practice. This is very much part of where the world is going towards. These are fundamental principles. These are like pillars on which all of our other, social transformations are built. So yes, they were definitely intentional, but had they not been intentional, they would have still been the same principle someone else would have come up with, I feel. Because you said a little bit of looking at the end. So sometimes, the principles that are, that have been successful having worked in many different conflict contexts, in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka and Nepal and so many other conflict contexts, these are principles that always deliver. These are principles that are necessary. And for some reason, when, international organizations or those who are trying to seek some solutions, go around these principles, you feel that. Either the solution is not lasting or the solution is not inclusive and it creates its own problems. So we know these. When we compromise on these fundamental principles, we go try to help one group against another group by arming this group and then later on, it comes right back as a terrorist group that attacks our own countries. So these circles, happen all the time, right? So to not compromise on these principles is really important. In terms of integrity as a core principle, this is something that is extremely important. Because currently the majority of decision making power is with politicians. So basically, elected leaders, sometimes not elected, political leaders make decisions for their nations and their people. And because money and corruption plays such a huge role in politics, as we've currently allowed it to in so many countries, these leaders are not always making decisions based on the best for their whole nation and, sometimes the best for the whole world, dare I say, should be something that we should think about, right? So the very narrow lens of being reelected, they make decisions that might pander to a base that they see as supporting them. So therefore, their decisions are not necessarily inclusive, nor are they based on principle. They're very often self serving. So this question of integrity at that level, is extremely important. Leaders, and you had another very good podcast session on this too. Leaders should really be thinking from a selfless perspective. We call this public service. So it should really be public service, right? It's not about re election. It's about doing the right thing. Even if it's unpopular. Leaders should be thoughtful, farsighted enough to bring populations with them, not necessarily to keep themselves safe. And so I feel like integrity at that level, but also integrity at the level of NGOs that are providing service to these people. Are we really centering the voices of people who are impacted in providing those services? How are we, engaging them? Are we also open to these ideas, actively? Creating systems that don't reinforce status quo and invite young people, invite women, invite, otherwise marginalized voices into positions of leadership, not just listen to them. And this is another issue as we're looking through these numbers we were talking about earlier, a lot of people who are young people now are going to be disproportionately impacted than those people who are in power. I was looking at people, young people whose voices are being raised around the world. They're leading movements, but they're not decision makers. And, I feel like how do we bring that idealism and the voice of the future into decision making bodies? So integrity, Those were different ideas that I was thinking about when we talked and I brought up this question of integrity. It's integrity at every level, but primarily to recognize these other principles that we talked about and fearlessly implement them. I think that's the other it's a moral integrity, right? It's not enough to just follow the rules as they are, because in many cases, the rules need to be revisited themselves. And one particular example is this protection gap. People who are refugees for environmental reasons are not covered by international definitions of refugees. You have to state or non state actor, should be persecuting you for you to be recognized and provided all the protections that we are, at least we're supposed to provide refugees according to international human rights law. And the environment is not considered, one of those actors. So if you're fleeing an environmental disaster, you're not covered under the international refugees law. So therefore, to say I'm implementing the law and not really questioning should the law itself or should the legal framework be revisited I think calls for a level of integrity. And to be able to call those as you say, speak truth to power. I think it calls for that level of integrity, which I think is critical. Without that, we will just continue at the level of governments at the level of corporate multinational corporations and at the level of a range of groups, if we cannot agree on science and if we cannot agree on changes that we all need to make, I think this is going to be much rough. It already is going to be rough, but if we have, a more prosperous way to come out of this is going to be, integrity is going to be critical.

Sovaida: 31:09

So really, it sounds like the concept of integrity also requires something we talk about a lot, which is a shift in mindsets which includes the ability to assess reality as it is, not as we would want it to be. Climate change is a reality. Being able to assess and on the basis of that assessment, being willing and able to be courageous and flexible enough to make the adjustments and shifts that are necessary, taking into consideration another principle that institutions, laws, and organizations, as we've talked about on this program, are there to serve us and to conduce to our happiness, not for us to sacrifice our own well being in order to uphold a particular scheme. So whether it's the current Article 21 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights that talks about the rights of refugees or the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, if they don't encompass the rights of what are now being known as the climate vulnerable, because people can't use the word climate refugees because technically they're not refugees under international We twist ourselves into a pretzel. There's a problem. It really doesn't matter how you label it. And if there's no law that currently covers it then gee whiz, we need to create a law or expand the existing law. But we come up with all these mental constructs and reasons why we can't act. And it ties into, I love that, what you said that saying that reminds me of Rosalind Carter saying that a true leader is someone who is able to take people where they don't want to go, but where they ought to be. And that's all of us today in this new era. Okay, so this has been really fascinating. You applied mindfully these principles, and you came up with a series of recommendations. I'm going to actually let people, as a teaser, go and read the report to see what these recommendations are. If you had one, let me ask you, if you had one recommendation that's one of your favorites or you'd want our viewers to know about, briefly, what would you want them to know just as a sampling?

Vasu: 33:27

A sampling? Maybe I'll pick one that we actually haven't really talked about which is specifically the right to vote. And why this is an important right, the right to vote, to run for office, and to engage with candidates and elected representatives in a meaningful fashion. Very often displaced people are completely left out, because they do not have the ability to impact the politics, and therefore politicians do not have to listen to them or they're not a constituency. So really having the legal framework. It's the right thing to do but it also is a smart thing to do. Is to really have the legal framework in place for people who are displaced to participate in decision making processes at a local level, but also at decision making processes, exercise their electoral rights. So the recommendations around what can parliaments do? What can election management bodies do? What can civil society do? And what can community leaders do? That set of recommendations, I think, are really, really important. And we've already talked about this. You asked for one. I'll take just one more. Is truly centering the voices of people who are displaced. I cannot say that enough because I think that is a huge gap in what we're dealing with. I think really looking to those communities of people who are directly going to be impacted or are impacted and bringing them on board as primary stakeholders, decision makers, is going to be really important. So those are the two.

Sovaida: 34:46

Yes, there are a lot more. There are a lot more.

Vasu: 34:49

It's an interesting topic and one that even as I was writing it, I went into it knowing that this is going to be one of many issues. It addresses the narrow area of the electoral rights of displaced people. And it was actually electoral rights, but decision making rights is really what it is about decision making. And, those voices. So that's what this particular paper focuses on. I'm hoping there will be already, in fact, planning a few more. So there'll be more papers on this topic. And there's also phenomenal work lots of people are doing around the world. So much inspiration to draw from.

Sovaida: 35:23

Yeah, it's exciting. As you're talking and just zooming out big time here, I keep thinking that this seems to be the time during humanity's evolution towards its collective maturity, that it seems like the lesson of the day is to learn to value the unique contributions that different peoples and nations and groups bring to all of humanity. And that depriving ourselves of these voices, whether it's because people don't have the right to vote, or because of just active discrimination against some race or another like anti Black racism in the United States and also people who persecute others on the basis of religion. We see that with the Rohingyas and the Uyghurs and the Bahá'ís in Iran and so on. They're just so many examples of prejudice and discrimination and all it does is it deprives this interconnected organism that is our world of the gift. So that seems to be one of the big takeaways at least for me from this report. Vasu, thank you so much for coming today and thank you for co authoring this report. I hope that our viewers have been inspired that they now have a lot of hope that you too can go out in whatever sphere of work you're in. It really doesn't matter what kind of work you do, we can all make an impact in the world if we mindfully apply the principles that we've been talking about. To uplifting humanity, thinking creatively, being willing to think out of the box, being courageous, and to planning ahead, being proactive. So I want to challenge our viewers to take five minutes after the end of this program to maybe sit still. And if you journal or not, maybe jot down, ask yourself, what can I do? What can I resolve to do in my own sphere of contribution in life in order to raise and uplift the state of humanity? Vasu, if you have a few minutes, shall we take a look and see if there are any comments or questions. I don't see any. I know a lot of people view this program later online. Remember we're available on the YouTube channel and also on Facebook. So if any of you have comments or questions, please put them in the chat, whatever platform you view this on. And I can forward these to Vasu and he can engage you directly on the platform. Is there anything, any last word, Vasu?

Vasu: 38:07

Thank you so much for doing this work. I've really been listening to these podcasts on a regular basis. And I think the points that you raise and you're bringing out are so important. So very glad to be a part of this and certainly please go to our website ifes.org which has the paper. If you just do IFES climate change It'll pick up the paper on google and please feel free to leave any questions As Sovaida said on any of these platforms and i'm happy to engage and particularly if you're doing interesting work that you want to highlight, please put those in because I think we are constantly learning and learning from each other. I look forward to hearing not only questions from me, but also about the amazing things that everyone's doing.

Sovaida: 38:49

Yes, we all learn from each other. Thank you so much. Take care. That's all for this episode of Reimagining Our World. I'll see you back here next month. If you liked this episode, please help us to get the word out by rating us and subscribing to the program on your favorite podcast platform. This series is also available in video on the YouTube channel of the Center for Peace and Global Governance, CPGG.