The Obenshain Family Great Issues Lectures

The former Swedish politician, and first United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict gives the 2024 Obenshain Family Great Issues Lecture in conversation with Dickey Center Director Victoria Holt.

Margot Wallström is a Swedish politician from the Social Democratic Party with a long career at the national, European, and international levels.

She served as Sweden's Minister of Foreign Affairs between 2014 - 2019. Margot Wallström was appointed the first United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict from 2010 to 2012. She worked as Vice-President of the European Commission and European Commissioner for Institutional Relations and Communication Strategy from 2004 to 2010 and European Commissioner for the Environment from 1999 to 2004.

 From 1988 she held several cabinet posts, first as Deputy Minister of Civil Affairs, Minister of Culture and also Minister of Social Affairs, an assignment she left after the 1998 elec-on. She was the CEO of a regional TV network in Värmland, Sweden from 1993 to1994. Before taking up her appointment as EU Commissioner she was the executive vice-president of Worldview Global Media in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

A conversation with Joel Lamstein, Founder of John Snow, Inc. (JSI), a global public health research and consulting firm, about the impact of building skills and infrastructure in areas of need, in community with the population served.

Joel Lamstein founded John Snow, Inc. with his partner Norbert Hirschhorn, M.D. in 1978. He serves as president of World Education, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of the poor through education, economic, and social development programs. In 1973, Joel co-founded Management Sciences for Health.

Joel is a senior lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is a frequent lecturer on organizational strategy, nonprofit management, international development, and strategic management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Global Health at the Boston University School of Public Health.

In 2009, Joel received the CEO Social Leadership Award, a program funded by the Lewis Family Foundation and given by the Boston Business Journal. In 2011, he was featured in the New York Times' The Boss profile.

Joel serves on the board of Physicians for Human Rights and the advisory council of the Children's Health Fund in New York. He is also on the Dean's Advisory Boards at Boston University School of Public Health, the University of Michigan School of Public Health, and the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. Joel served on the board of the Global Health Council from 2004 until 2012.

Joel has advised numerous public health programs throughout the world on issues of public health management. He studied math and physics at the University of Michigan and management at MIT's Sloan School.

Joseph Cirincione, National Security expert and author. Former President, Plougshares Fund, and V.P. Center for American Progress; Kori Schake, Senior Fellow, Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute. Former Deputy Director-General, International Institute for Strategic Studies.

What is the United States' role in the world today: Retreat or Engage? From Russia's invasion of Ukraine to defending human rights, the US faces choices. Leading international security experts Joe Cirincione and Kori Schake, from the left and right, explored US choices. They were in dialogue over how the US should meet its aims, when to use force, how to address China's role, and consider nuclear weapons and defending democracy. The discussion was informed by Schake's trip to Ukraine and her meeting with President Zelensky.

John Barry, prize-winning and New York Times best-selling author. The National Academies of Sciences named his 2004 book The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history, a study of the 1918 pandemic. Kendall Hoyt, Faculty Director, Pandemic Security Project at the Dickey Center, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Geisel School of Medicine

Michael J. Abramowitz, President of Freedom House, Former Director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Levin Institute for Holocaust Education and Washington Post correspondent in conversation with Dickey Center Director Victoria Holt. 

Panelists include: Michèle Flournoy, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, WestExec Advisors; and former US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy under President Barack Obama; Ivan Krastev, Chair, Centre for Liberal Strategies, Sofia; and Permanent Fellow, IWM Institute of Human Sciences, Vienna; William C. Wohlforth, Daniel Webster Professor of Government, Dartmouth College. Moderator, Daniel Benjamin, President, American Academy in Berlin; and former Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the US Department of State under President Barack Obama.

A conversation with Travis L. Adkins, Lecturer of African and Security Studies, Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown and Kathleen Powers, Asst. Professor, Dept. of Government, Dartmouth College. 

Hillary Rodham Clinton, First Lady of the United States (1993-2001), Senator of NY (2001-2009), Secretary of State (2009-2013), in conversation with Daniel Benjamin, and Jake Sullivan.

Antony "Tony" Blinken has held senior foreign policy positions in two U.S. administrations over three decades, including, most recently, Deputy Secretary of State (2015–2017), the nation's number two diplomat. As Deputy Secretary, Mr. Blinken traveled to forty countries, helping to lead diplomacy in the fight against ISIL, the rebalance to Asia, and the global refugee crisis. Within the State Department, he built bridges to the innovation community, creating a full time State Department presence in Silicon Valley and initiating the State Department Innovation Forum, which enlists innovators and technologists in solving complex foreign policy problems.

For millennia, most human lives have been spent enduring extreme poverty, without enough food, medicine, education, freedom to live a decent life. If you were born on Earth in 1980 you had a 50/50 chance of living in destitution. But here's the amazing news: after decades of unprecedented progress, the prospects for eradicating extreme poverty by 2030 are real.

Author and entrepreneur Alex Thier, Former Chief of Policy, Planning and Learning at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), explains how it can happen, and how you can help solve humanity's greatest challenge.

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Neal S. Wolin, Deputy Secretary of Treasury from 2009 - 2013, in conversation with Dan Benjamin

As Deputy Secretary from 2009-2013, Neal Wolin served as the Treasury Department's Chief Operating Officer and supervised all Treasury bureaus and domestic and international policy offices as well as its management, legal, public affairs and congressional affairs functions. He played a key role in formulating and executing the U.S. government's response to the financial crisis of 2008-2009—including its economic recovery and financial reform plans. President Obama said Wolin's "deep knowledge and excellent judgment helped us prevent a second Great Depression, pass tough new Wall Street Reform, strengthen our financial system, foster growth here at home and promote economic development around the world."

Carol Graham, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution. Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor

Benn Steil, Senior Fellow and Director of International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations

Sarah Chayes, Special Advisor to US General Stanley McCrystal, Commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, Former reporter for National Public Radio.

Dr. Jane Goodall, English primatologist and anthropologist. She is considered the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, after 60 years studying the social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees.