More than 20 global leaders – including former presidents, prime ministers and Nobel Prize winners – will meet in London on 23 January to champion the world’s young people by bidding to reverse a dangerous decline in financing for education, particularly in conflict zones.

Following this meeting, the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, Rt Hon Gordon Brown; the chair of the Global Partnership for Education and former Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard; and the head of the Overseas Development Institute, Kevin Watkins, will be in conversation at the Frontline Club. The discussion will be chaired by foreign correspondent David Loyn, and will focus on how the international community must fund 1 million school places for Syrian refugee children. The event takes place just 10 days ahead of a major United Nations-sponsored Syria relief funding conference, also being held in London.

The International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity is supported by the Government of Norway and Prime Minister Erna Solberg and co-convened by President Michelle Bachelet of Chile, President Joko Widodo of Indonesia, President Peter Mutharika of Malawi and the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova. It will review the future of global education, which currently leaves 124 million young people out of school. The selection of this diverse group of individuals comes at a crucial time, when more children are out of school than a year ago and increased conflict has forced millions of children out of the classrooms – becoming refugees with no prospects of education. The Commission will explore how over the next 15 to 20 years, education could lead to greater economic growth, better health outcomes, and improved global security.

If you want to learn how bananas helped a journalist smuggle banned magazines into eastern Europe, or how information was passed around via lipstick in Pinochet’s Chile, then join Index on Censorship for the launch of Spies, Secrets and Lies – our latest magazine featuring stories of censorship and ingenious efforts to evade it.

Expect a lively evening exploring censorship old and new, hear some stories of heroic stands for free expression shared for the first time in the latest magazine, and debate with us what the future of censorship might look like.

From China’s new security laws and South Korea’s new smartphone spies to Eritrea’s agents and the new fighters for free expression online. Where and what are the challenges today and how do they compare to the past?

• With an introduction by Stephen Grey, journalist and author of The New Spymasters.
• Panelists include Robert McCrum, Xiaolu Guo, Ismael Einashe. Chaired by Rachael Jolley, editor of Index on Censorship magazine.
• Attendees receive a free copy of the latest magazine.

Index on Censorship is one of the world’s leading defenders and supporters of the right to free expression internationally. 

More on the speakers:

Stephen Grey is an award-winning British investigative journalist and author, perhaps best known for uncovering the CIA’s program of ‘extraordinary rendition’. His latest of three books, The New Spymasters, looks at spying in the digital age and how it has changed since the Cold War. The London-based reporter has also reported from conflicts in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan and covered the subjects of national security, terrorism and security agencies extensively.

Xiaolu Guo is a fiction writer, filmmaker and political activist. Her award-winning works include Village of Stone, I Am China, and the acclaimed film She, a Chinese. Guo, named one of the ‘Best of Young British Novelists’ by Granta Magazine and an outspoken critic of communist oppression in China, has developed her own unique vision of the country’s past and globalised future.

Robert McCrum is an associate editor of the Observer. For nearly 20 years he was editor in chief of the publishing firm of Faber and Faber and is co-author of the Story of English as well as six highly acclaimed novels: In the Secret State, A Loss of Heart, The Fabulous Englishman, Mainland, The Psychological Moment, and Suspicion. He was the literary editor of the Observer from 1996 to 2008, and has been a regular contributor to the Guardian since 1990.

Ismail Einashe is a freelance journalist, researcher and an associate editor at Warscapes, a foreign affairs magazine. He has worked for national and international media including Prospect, the Guardian and the BBC since he first came to the UK as a child refugee.

This event is organised by:

Across much of the world people face a daily battle with corruption. Infiltrating corporations, governments, the military and civil service, both on a local level and internationally, it is often seen as a symptom rather than the cause of unrest and hardship. It is therefore often relegated to the back of the queue when tackling a country’s problems.

We will be joined by Sarah Chayes and Tom Burgis, whose investigations have taken them deep into the workings of corrupt systems across Africa, Afghanistan and elsewhere. From the local power brokers to the international corporations, they will be discussing what they discovered about how corrupt systems operate, the implications locally and globally, and what can be done to more effectively tackle them.

Chaired by Owen Bennett-Jones, freelance journalist and host of Newshour on the BBC World Service. As a correspondent with the BBC he has reported from over 60 countries. He is author of Pakistan: Eye of the Storm and his first novel Target Britain.

Sarah Chayes is a senior associate in the Democracy and Rule of Law Program and the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment. Formerly special adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, she is an expert in kleptocracy, anti-corruption, South Asia policy and civil-military relations. As an award-winning former NPR correspondent she covered the fall of the Taliban, then left journalism but remained in Afghanistan for a decade in order to contribute to the reconstruction of the country. Chayes is author of The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban, and more recently Thieves of State.

Tom Burgis is investigations correspondent at the Financial Times, formerly the newspaper’s Johannesburg correspondent and West Africa correspondent. He has reported on Africa since 2006 and is one of the only foreign journalists to have done back-to-back postings in southern and western Africa. He has been nominated for Young Journalist of the Year, and in 2013 won the RSL Jerwood Award for a first work of non-fiction in progress. He is also the recipient of the prestigious Financial Times Jones-Mauthner prize for ‘his superb reporting and exposé of corruption in mineral-rich Angola and Guinea’. He is author of The Looting Machine: Warlords, Tycoons, Smugglers and the Systematic Theft of Africa’s Wealth.

PLEASE NOTE THIS EVENT WILL BE FILMED AND STREAMED LIVE ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL

Shrinking editorial budgets have resulted in journalists increasingly turning to aid agencies to cover stories. At the same time, aid agencies are being pushed to be more media savvy in order to get their message out and to support advocacy and fundraising efforts.

In conflict and disaster zones, aid agencies often have the local knowledge and access to affected communities. Journalists need these stories, while aid agencies are equally in need of the media coverage. Although it appears to be an ideal partnership, this kind of embedded journalism raises significant editorial and security questions.

We will be joined by an expert panel of journalists, security experts and humanitarian workers to examine the editorial complexities and security risks presented by these partnerships. The media and aid agencies have long had a symbiotic relationship; we will be looking at how that is developing.

Chaired by Ben Parker who has worked in media and humanitarian response for over 20 years. He is the co-founder and CEO of IRIN.

The panel:

Polly Markandya is the head of communications at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

Lisa Reilly is the executive coordinator of the European Interagency Security Forum (EISF). She has 20 years experience in the development and humanitarian response sector, working overseas in a variety of programme management roles in both Africa and Asia.

Michelle Betz is a former journalist who now does media development work with UN and aid agencies in conflict and post-conflict countries.

Siobhan Sinnerton is the commissioning editor for news and current affairs at Channel 4.

Photo: Fabio Basone/MSF. MSF doctor, Dr Javid Abdelmonemin, adjusts his goggle camera equipment during filming for the BBC Panorama documentary ‘Ebola Frontline’ at MSF Case Management Centre, Kailahun, Sierra Leone.

This event is in partnership with the European Interagency Security Forum.

A decade on, what has changed, both in the way natural disasters are communicated and in the way the humanitarian industry responds to them?

For a two-part evening, in partnership with Christian Aid, we will be reflecting on the developments we have seen since the Indian Ocean tsunami and how communication around natural disasters has evolved.

1. Every time I see the sea

In August 2005, photojournalist Tim Hetherington was commissioned by Christian Aid to travel to India and Sri Lanka and produce a set of photos representing the organisation’s post-trauma, rehabilitation and rebuilding work, for a multi-media exhibition in London to mark the first anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami.

For the first part of the evening Joseph Cabon, senior photo editor who commissioned Hetherington, will present the images, many of which have not been published before. He will be talking to photographer Giles Duley about the use of photographic representation during difficult and testing times.

Joseph Cabon helped set up the photographic unit at Christian Aid more than 30 years ago. During his time with the organisation he has commissioned several hundred photo trips with a range of talented photographers, including well-known established names like Sebastião Salgado, Don McCullin and Chris Steele-Perkins.

2. Documenting disasters

For the second part of the evening we will be bringing together a panel of journalists and members of the humanitarian sector to examine how communication around natural disasters has developed.

We will also be looking at the way affected communities are now using social media to document unfolding disasters and how journalists are utilising this to gather information and represent on the ground community views.

Chaired by Giles Duley, a documentary photographer who has worked in Angola, Sudan, Nigeria, DRC, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Lebanon among others, covering humanitarian and conflict stories. He has partnered with charities such as MSF, Handicap International, MAG and EMERGENCY and his photographs have been published in The Sunday Times, Observer, GQ, Vogue and Esquire.

The panel:

Nick Guttmann is head of humanitarian division at Christian Aid. He has worked in the humanitarian sector for over 26 years and has significant experience at field, HQ and alliance levels.

Imogen Wall is a freelance communications consultant who focusses on policy, advocacy and use of communications technology in disaster response. She arrived in Banda Aceh six weeks after the tsunami and stayed for 18 months, working for UNDP and UNOCHA on both tsunami response and post conflict communications projects.

Brendan Paddy is the head of communications at the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC). He has led the media work of the DEC member agencies in the immediate aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, Pakistan floods and the East Africa food crisis. Previously he has held positions at Amnesty International, Save the Children, Childline and Age UK.

Atika Shubert is an award-winning CNN correspondent based in London. She has extensive reporting experience in Asia, the Middle East and Europe. She was one of the first correspondents to report live from Aceh, Indonesia, the area closest to the epicentre of the Indian Ocean tsunami.

Pictures: Tim Hetherington, Every time I see the sea

Desperate for a better life, men, women and children risk perilous journeys for the promise of prosperity in the UK, Europe or America. Those who manage to reach their destination will often find themselves sold into a life of sexual exploitation, forced labour, street crime and domestic servitude.

Trafficking affects every continent and every country, and yet we are often unaware that it is happening all around us.

Ahead of the Thomson Reuters Foundation Trust Women conference, at which this subject will be discussed extensively, we will be bringing together a panel of experts to examine how we can tackle the problem of human trafficking. They will be discussing the scale of the problem and the action that needs to be taken to make slavery a thing of the past.

Chaired by Prabha Kotiswaran is senior lecturer in Law at King’s College London. She practiced law for four years at the New York law firm of Debevoise and Plimpton. She is on the editorial board of the Canadian Journal of Law and Society and on the Advisory Board of an ILO-DFID anti-trafficking Project, Work in Freedom.

The panel:

Annie Kelly writes on global development, human rights and social affairs for The Guardian and Observer. She is currently working on The Guardian‘s Modern-day slavery in focus project.

Monique Villa is a journalist, business leader and advocate for women’s rights. She is the CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Klara Skrivankova is an expert on human trafficking and forced labour in the UK and internationally. She is Europe programme and advocacy coordinator at Anti-Slavery International.

Sam Whyte is head of policy and advocacy at UNICEF UK. She is leading the development of public policy and cross-organisational advocacy strategy on UK children’s issues, currently focusing on child trafficking, migrant children, and children’s human rights.

Picture: Reuters

On 10 June, world leaders and NGOs will gather in London for a global summit with the aim to create “irreversible momentum against sexual violence in conflict and practical action that impacts those on the ground”. Ahead of the summit, we will be joined by a panel of speakers who have been working towards this aim for many years. They will be discussing what needs to be done to make it a reality.

The eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been described as the “rape capital of the world”. Increased cases of sexual violence against women in DRC coincided with the emerging armed conflicts of the early 1990s. Although Congolese law criminalises many forms of sexual violence, these laws are often not enforced.

With a particular focus on the DRC our panel will be mapping out what is being done to help individuals and societies affected by sexual violence and what more needs to be done. We will be asking what measures can be put in place to help victims bring the perpetrators to justice.

Chaired by Liz Ford, deputy editor of The Guardian’s Global Development website.

The panel:

Doctor Juliet Cohen is head of doctors at UK-based charity Freedom from Torture. She specialises in the examination of victims of torture, domestic violence and trafficking and has written over 1000 forensic reports documenting the psychological and physical sequelae of torture, including rape, for use in international protection claims. In 2012 she provided an expert witness statement on late disclosure of sexual violence for the European Court of Human Rights and is a commentator to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the new International Protocol on Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict.

Fiona Lloyd-Davies is an award winning filmmaker and photojournalist who has worked in areas of conflict for over 20 years. She’s been working in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 2001 making films for the BBC, Al Jazeera, Channel 4 News and France24. In recent years her work has been supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, and led to the completion of Seeds of Hope – a feature length documentary that tells the story of women survivors of sexual violence in Eastern DRC through the extraordinary life and work of multiple rape survivor, Masika Katsuva. Seeds of Hope will be shown as part of the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, details here. She has just finished a film about the Minova rape trial which will be shown on BBC Newsnight.

Serge-Eric is a co-founder and member of the Survivors Speak OUT! (SSO) network. SSO is a group of torture survivors and former clients of Freedom from Torture who draw on their lived experience of torture and seeking protection through asylum in the UK, to influence decision-makers and raise public awareness of the challenges facing survivors trying to rebuild their lives. The network has worked with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the development of a new International Protocol on the Documentation and Investigation of Sexual Violence in Conflict.

Sarah Cotton is the public affairs and communications advisor for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Mission in the UK and Ireland. She leads the work of the ICRC with Parliament and works in both the UK and Ireland to communicate ICRC policy, operations and concerns. She also works to develop and disseminate ICRC policy on sexual violence and violence against healthcare. In this capacity she travelled to Lebanon in April 2014 to join an assessment of sexual violence in Syria.

Photograph: Andrew McConnell, 2008. A woman who was raped by a government soldier recovers at the Heal Africa hospital in Goma. Sexual violence has become systematic in DRC with the brutality of attacks often leaving the victims with severe damage to reproductive organs, resulting in multiple fistulas and incontinence. An average of 1,100 rape cases are reported each month.

Join The Guardian’s Liz Ford and members of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch in a discussion about their work and the challenges they face in working to protect the rights and improve the lives of women and girls around the world.

The event will be an opportunity to hear about some of Human Rights Watch’s latest work on combating violence against women, promoting gender equality and tackling issues such as child marriage, sexual violence in conflict and the abuse of domestic workers.

Human Rights Watch is one of the world’s leading independent organisations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold perpetrators accountable for their crimes.

Chair by Liz Ford, deputy editor of The Guardian‘s Global Development website.

The panel:

Liesl Gerntholtz is director of the women’s rights division.

Samer Muscati is a researcher for women’s rights in emergencies.

Rothna Begum is a researcher for women’s rights in MENA.

Agnes Odhiambo is a researcher for women’s rights in Africa.

Gauri van Gulik is the global advocate in the women’s rights division. 

Photograph: @2012 Samer Muscati/ Human Rights Watch

https://soundcloud.com/frontlineclub/the-fog-of-peace

In war there is rarely a single action or answer that will bring peace. As we are seeing with the conflict in Syria, the process of negotiation and resolution is incredibly complex. As the focus swings from intervention to international conferences, how do you begin to forge an agreement?

In a unique account of the process of conflict resolution, The Fog of Peace: The Human Face of Conflict Resolution offers an insight into psychological theories, geopolitical realities and first-hand peace-making experience.

The authors will be joining us to share their analysis of international diplomacy and the complexities of conflict resolution. They will be exploring the question of intervention and examining the impact of the changing nature of warfare and technology.

Chaired by Channel 4 News presenter, Jon Snow.

With:

Gabrielle Rifkind is the director of the Middle East programme at Oxford Research Group. She is a group analyst and specialist in conflict resolution immersed in the politics of the Middle East. Rifkind combines in-depth political and psychological expertise with many years’ experience in promoting serious analysis and discreet dialogues with groups behind the scenes.

Giandomenico Picco served as under-secretary general of the United Nations and was personal representative of the secretary general for the United Nation year of dialogue amongst civilisations. He led the task force negotiations to end the Iran-Iraq war and the freedom of Western hostages from Lebanon. Over decades he helped securing the freedom of 127 individuals unjustly detained from 4 different countries.

On 12 January 2010 the deadliest earthquake ever recorded in the western hemisphere hit Haiti, claiming between 230,000 and 300,000 lives. As aid organisations flooded the country there was an unprecedented outpouring from the international community, and $15.3 billion was pledged for relief and reconstruction.

We will be joined by a panel of experts from the humanitarian aid community and reporters who covered the earthquake and the subsequent reconstruction efforts, to examine why – after three years and $15.3 billion – the country is still in crisis.

In a recent development, cholera victims in Haiti are threatening to sue the UN, accusing them of negligently allowing peacekeeping soldiers to pollute Haiti’s water with cholera. We will be asking how the situation went so wrong and have the lessons been learned.

Chaired by Inigo Gilmore, an award winning journalist and filmmaker who has worked across the world, with extensive experience in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

The panel:

Jonathan Katz is a writer and reporter, he is author of The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster. He has written for the AP for six years, stationed in Haiti for nearly three and a half years and was the only American reporter in the country when the earthquake hit on 12 January 2010. He is the 2010 recipient of the Medill Medal of Courage in Journalism and the 2012 winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award for this book.

Andy Leak is professor of French and Francophone Studies at University College London. His current research centres on literature and politics in Haiti since 1986. He is also secretary of the Haiti Support Group – a UK-based not-for-profit which seeks to amplify the voices of progressive Haitian CSOs in Europe and N. America. He is one of the editors of the quarterly Haiti Briefing.

Arjan Hehenkamp is a general director of Medecins Sans Frontieres (for the Dutch section) and has twenty years experience of humanitarian work around the world since starting in Somalia in 1993. Since 2006 he has been ultimately responsible for much of MSF’s work in Haiti as well as many other countries. MSF has been working in Haiti since 1991 and currently runs substantial medical programmes in the country.

Mario Gousse is a Haitian-born science teacher based in the UK. He is a member of the Haiti Support Group Executive Committee.  He has helped to found the education charity UHUK (United Haitians in the United Kingdom) and currently serves as their Education Officer.  He is a student and observer of Haitian history, politics and culture.