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Published by Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University
Welcome to “Live from the Buffett Reading Room” from Northwestern University’s Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs. This channel gives listeners a front-row seat to events held in the Buffett Reading Room, where global leaders and pioneering scholars convene to investigate the world’s most pressing problems. From peace negotiations to reproductive rights to AI and geopolitics, these conversations showcase insights from the front lines of international research and policy. Subscribe to hear what happens when world-class thinkers gather to envision solutions to urgent global problems.
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Listen to the final panel of our spring 2026 Buffett Symposium, Brave New Futures. The discussion focused on the future of work and featured: Suhani Jalota, founder of Myna Mahila and founder and leader of the Future of Work for Women Initiative at Stanford University's Hoover Institution Olubayo Adekanmbi, CEO of Data Science Nigeria and co-founder of EqualyzAI Moderator: Dean Karlan, Frederic Esser Nemmers Distinguished Professor of Economics and Finance at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Business, founder and former president of Innovations for Poverty Action, and former Chief Economist for USAID Brave New Futures convened a visionary set of international thinkers to explore how human relationships, information ecosystems, labor, and the planet itself are being reshaped in this moment of uncertainty and possibility. From the power of art for action to the future of work and planetary survival, the symposium envisioned bold new visions for building more just and sustainable global futures. Learn more: https://buffett.northwestern.edu/events/brave-new-futures/spring-symposium.html
Listen to the fourth panel of our spring 2026 Buffett Symposium, Brave New Futures. The discussion focused on planetary futures and featured: Vanessa Nakate , climate activist, founder of the Rise Up climate movement , and author of A Bigger Picture David Wallace-Wells , writer for New York Times Opinion , columnist for New York Times Magazine , and author of The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming Moderator: Iza Ding , Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University's Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences Brave New Futures convened a visionary set of international thinkers to explore how human relationships, information ecosystems, labor, and the planet itself are being reshaped in this moment of uncertainty and possibility. From the power of art for action to the future of work and planetary survival, the symposium envisioned bold new visions for building more just and sustainable global futures. Learn more: https://buffett.northwestern.edu/events/brave-new-futures/spring-symposium.html
Listen to the third panel of our spring 2026 Buffett Symposium, Brave New Futures. The discussion focused on the arts of social change and featured: Bing Liu , filmmaker and director of the Emmy- and Oscar-nominated feature documentary Minding the Gap and the newly released feature film Preparation for the Next Life Omar Offendum , spoken word poet, rapper, and storyteller Moderator: Ellen Harvey , conceptual artist whose recent work includes Utopia Machine Brave New Futures convened a visionary set of international thinkers to explore how human relationships, information ecosystems, labor, and the planet itself are being reshaped in this moment of uncertainty and possibility. From the power of art for action to the future of work and planetary survival, the symposium envisioned bold new visions for building more just and sustainable global futures. Learn more: https://buffett.northwestern.edu/events/brave-new-futures/spring-symposium.html
Listen to the second panel of our spring 2026 Buffett Symposium, Brave New Futures. The discussion focused on new media and featured: Allison Yang , founder and CEO of Reality Reload Shuwei Fang , Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politic, & Public Policy Moderator: Jeremy Gilbert , Knight Professor in Digital Media Strategy at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism Brave New Futures convened a visionary set of international thinkers to explore how human relationships, information ecosystems, labor, and the planet itself are being reshaped in this moment of uncertainty and possibility. From the power of art for action to the future of work and planetary survival, the symposium envisioned bold new visions for building more just and sustainable global futures. Learn more: https://buffett.northwestern.edu/events/brave-new-futures/spring-symposium.html
Listen to the first panel of our spring 2026 Buffett Symposium, Brave New Futures. The discussion focused on human relationships and featured: Qing Wang , co-founder of The Weirdo Podcast Nataliya Kos’myna , research scientist at MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces group Moderator: Nour Kteily , Kellogg Chair in Enlightened Disagreement, Professor of Management & Organizations, and Founding Co-Director of the Litowitz Center for Enlightened Disagreement at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Business Brave New Futures convened a visionary set of international thinkers to explore how human relationships, information ecosystems, labor, and the planet itself are being reshaped in this moment of uncertainty and possibility. From the power of art for action to the future of work and planetary survival, the symposium envisioned bold new visions for building more just and sustainable global futures. Learn more about the event: https://buffett.northwestern.edu/events/brave-new-futures/spring-symposium.html
Our winter 2026 Buffett Symposium on disinformation convened global experts and practitioners from industry, public policy, academia, and civil society to address four urgent priorities: sustaining trust and credibility in information flows; strengthening accountability for platforms, governments, and users alike; advancing innovative tools and strategies to counter disinformation; and forging multi-sector collaboration to build resilient information ecosystems worldwide. This panel convened experts in advocacy, research, and industry to discuss mechanisms for ensuring accountability of platforms, publishers, and users. Panelists included: Imran Ahmed , CEO, Center for Countering Digital Hate Emily Vraga , Don & Carole Larson Professor in Health Communication, Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota James Warren , Executive Editor, NewsGuard Moderated by Priyanka Motaparthy , Clinical Professor of Law, Director of the Center for International Human Rights, Pritzker School of Law, Northwestern University Key Takeaways: Platform accountability for disinformation is not absent — it has been deliberately displaced, and the legal framework that enables this must change. Ahmed argued that platforms maintain enormous power over what speech is amplified, monetized, and made visible to billions of people, while engineering systems that reward outrage and falsehood and insulating themselves from liability through Section 230. He described how CCDH research found 680,000 antisemitic posts on X viewed 193 million times in a single year — despite the platform's stated policies — with ads running alongside the content and revenues flowing back to the creators. He and Warren both pointed to the need for structural reforms: sunsetting Section 230 to restore liability, requiring risk mitigation for foreseeable harms, mandating transparency through legislation, and holding platforms financially accountable when their systems cause measurable harm to users and communities. Reputational pressure and economic incentives, while imperfect, represent meaningful levers for accountability in the absence of regulation. Warren described how NewsGuard's reporting on misinformation sites exposed the role of programmatic advertising in funding harmful content — leading ad agencies and brands, concerned about being associated with pro-Putin or hate-driven sites, to change their practices. He also documented how straightforward transparency demands, such as requiring news outlets to disclose ownership and differentiate news from opinion, produced real changes at hundreds of sites. Vraga added that user corrections can reduce belief in misinformation, and that public pressure campaigns — from the Delete Facebook movement to advertiser boycotts following Musk's acquisition of X — have had genuine if limited financial consequences for platforms, suggesting that collective user behavior remains an underutilized accountability mechanism. The organizations doing accountability work are themselves under attack, and defending their ability to operate is now part of the fight. Ahmed described being banned from the United States by the Trump administration — despite holding a green card and having a family here — in retaliation for CCDH's research documenting the surge in hate speech on X following Musk's takeover. Warren described a Republican amendment to the military appropriations bill that barred the Pentagon from working with NewsGuard by name. Both saw these attacks as a sign not of defeat but of progress: platforms and their political allies are fighting back precisely because accountability efforts are working. Ahmed expressed cautious optimism that the age of accountability is inevitable, pointing to Online Safety Acts in the UK and EU, growing state-level legislation in the US, and a new generation of systems-level thinking that focuses on algorithmic design and monetization rather than content moderation alone.
Our winter 2026 Buffett Symposium on disinformation convened global experts and practitioners from industry, public policy, academia, and civil society to address four urgent priorities: sustaining trust and credibility in information flows; strengthening accountability for platforms, governments, and users alike; advancing innovative tools and strategies to counter disinformation; and forging multi-sector collaboration to build resilient information ecosystems worldwide. This panel brought together leaders of populations targeted by state-sponsored disinformation and U.S. foreign policy to discuss approaches to countering such campaigns and to ensure trustworthy information spaces. Panelists included: Ellen McCarthy , Chairwoman and CEO, Trust in Media Cooperative ; former US Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence & Research Shih-Hung Lo , Professor, National Chung Cheng University; Chairperson, Taiwan FactCheck Center Viktoriia Romaniuk , Deputy Chief Editor, StopFake ; Director, Mohyla School of Journalism at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Moderated by Olga Kamenchuk , Associate Professor of Instruction and Faculty Affiliate, Center for Communication & Public Policy, School of Communication Key Takeaways: Here's the trimmed version: Key Takeaways: The most dangerous consequence of state-sponsored disinformation is not that people believe false things — it is that they stop trusting anything at all. Romaniuk described how Russia's decade-long information campaign against Ukraine has pursued a deliberate strategy of blurring the line between true and false, creating a climate in which people simply disengage from verification altogether. Lo echoed this from Taiwan's perspective, noting that Chinese influence campaigns during the 2024 presidential election were not designed to support any particular candidate but to convince citizens that democracy itself was broken and institutions could not be trusted. McCarthy reframed the threat in systemic terms: the strategic goal of adversaries is not persuasion but paralysis — polluting the information environment so that societies, governments, and alliances cannot think, coordinate, or act coherently. Russia and China pursue disinformation with meaningfully different strategies, and effective responses must account for those differences. McCarthy characterized Russia's approach as focused on mass disruption and chaos, while China's is more targeted, long-term, and data-driven — what Lo described as cognitive warfare. Lo explained how Chinese-linked actors have built networks of lifestyle social media accounts that post about food and travel to gain trust before pivoting to political content at critical moments. Against chaos-based disinformation, the right response is clarity and rapid correction; against precision-based cognitive warfare, the response must be long-term resilience built through media literacy, trusted local voices, and early detection of coordinated inauthentic behavior. Building resilient information ecosystems requires investing in trust infrastructure long before a crisis hits — and Ukraine and Taiwan offer hard-won models. Romaniuk described how StopFake spent years building a database of Russian disinformation narratives and cultivating a trusted public audience, so that when the full-scale invasion began, ordinary Ukrainians knew where to turn. Lo described Taiwan's civic technology community, where volunteer networks and professional fact-checkers use AI-assisted monitoring with final human verification, and where independent fact-checking has become authoritative enough that political parties now cite it to challenge each other. McCarthy argued that the broader lesson is the need to treat the information ecosystem as critical infrastructure — developing shared standards, provenance systems, and governance frameworks that function even when governments and platforms retreat from their traditional roles.
Our winter 2026 Buffett Symposium on disinformation convened global experts and practitioners from industry, public policy, academia, and civil society to address four urgent priorities: sustaining trust and credibility in information flows; strengthening accountability for platforms, governments, and users alike; advancing innovative tools and strategies to counter disinformation; and forging multi-sector collaboration to build resilient information ecosystems worldwide. This panel convened leaders representing the global tech industry, journalism, and policy to explore how multi-stakeholder collaboration can collectively address the challenges of disinformation. Panelists included: Angie Drobnic Holan , Director of the International Fact-Checking Network , Poynter Institute Erin Saltman , Senior Director, Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT) David Bray , Distinguished Chair of the Accelerator, Stimson Center ; Principal/CEO, LDA Ventures, Inc. Moderated by Nicholas Diakopoulos , Professor and Director of the Computational Journalism Lab , School of Communication, Northwestern University Key Takeaways: Effective multi-stakeholder collaboration on disinformation is less a coordination problem than a problem of misaligned incentives — and that distinction matters enormously for how we respond. Holan argued that the current moment is not simply one of stakeholders failing to get on the same page, but of certain powerful actors — major platforms and political figures — actively benefiting from the persistence of disinformation. She pushed back against the narrative that fact-checking has failed, noting that Meta's third-party fact-checking program was still running in every country except the United States when it was curtailed, and that it was dismantled not because it didn't work but because it threatened profitable business models and political interests. The practical implication, she argued, is that coalitions for information integrity must be built around the sectors of society — science, education, journalism, civic institutions — whose core missions genuinely depend on accurate information. Addressing disinformation requires understanding why people reach for false narratives in the first place, not just correcting the narratives themselves. Bray drew on his experience across national security and technology policy to argue that people turn to conspiracy theories when they feel anxious or purposeless, and that debunking false claims can feel like an attack on identity. He pointed to lessons from public health, where effective campaigns succeeded not by presenting facts alone but by working through trusted community messengers and giving people a genuine sense of agency. Saltman echoed this from a counterterrorism perspective, noting that violent extremist recruitment succeeds largely by offering belonging and purpose — and that counter-messaging works best when it starts from common ground rather than confrontation. Tackling disinformation at scale demands cross-sector partnerships built around concrete, time-limited goals — and the GIFCT offers a replicable model. Saltman described how the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism was founded because no single platform or government could address cross-platform harms alone, and how its working groups bring together tech companies, civil society, law enforcement, and governments around specific shared problems with defined outputs and timelines. She noted that civil society organizations are typically the most resource-constrained partners in these collaborations and require deliberate structural support. All three panelists agreed that ground-truth knowledge about how harmful content actually circulates — including coded language, memes, and platform-specific behavior — almost always originates with civil society, making their inclusion essential.
Our winter 2026 Buffett Symposium on disinformation convened global experts and practitioners from industry, public policy, academia, and civil society to address four urgent priorities: sustaining trust and credibility in information flows; strengthening accountability for platforms, governments, and users alike; advancing innovative tools and strategies to counter disinformation; and forging multi-sector collaboration to build resilient information ecosystems worldwide. This panel brought together leading voices from psychological science, industry, and fact-checking to explore cutting-edge strategies and innovation for strengthening societies’ resilience against evolving disinformation threats. Panelists included: Gordon Pennycook , Associate Professor of Psychology and Dorothy & Ariz Mehta Faculty Leadership Fellow, Cornell University Andrew Pel, Head of Campaigns, Moonshot Laura Zommer , Co-Founder and CEO, Factchequeado ; Founder, LatamChequea Moderated by Erik Nisbet , Owen L. Coon Professor of Policy Analysis & Communication, Director of the Center for Communication & Public Policy, School of Communication, Northwestern University Key Takeaways Psychological inoculation — exposing people to weakened forms of manipulation techniques before they encounter them — shows real promise as a scalable resilience intervention, but no single approach is sufficient on its own. Pel described Moonshot's video-based prebunking campaigns, which reached hundreds of millions of people across the EU, Indonesia, and Ukraine, and produced measurable gains in people's ability to detect manipulation techniques like scapegoating and fear-mongering. Pennycook added that AI-assisted debunking can also be remarkably effective: in a study published in Science, GPT-4 conversations reduced conspiracy belief in roughly a quarter of participants, with effects holding at both ten days and two months later. Both panelists acknowledged key limitations — prebunking effects can decay over time, and debunking addresses specific beliefs without making people more broadly rational — underscoring Zommer's point that these tools work best in combination with trusted, community-rooted information networks. Reaching the people who most need accurate information requires investing in trusted messengers, not just better content. Zommer described how Factchequeado built a network of 141 local media partners and grassroots organizations to deliver fact-checked content to Spanish-speaking communities in the US through the platforms they actually use — WhatsApp, YouTube, and TikTok. A key insight is that trust must be built before a crisis hits: audiences are far more likely to engage with accurate information during elections or emergencies if a relationship with a trusted source already exists. All three panelists agreed that fact-checking by professional journalists remains indispensable, but that expanding delivery through content creators and community influencers is increasingly essential for reaching audiences traditional media cannot. The most urgent near-term investment is in truth-tellers — and the most important long-term investment is in critical thinking education. Pennycook argued that all psychological and technological interventions ultimately depend on there being good, accurate information in the environment to begin with, making sustained investment in journalism and fact-checking the essential foundation. Looking further ahead, panelists converged on the need for media literacy education that begins in schools and reaches across generations — teaching people not just to identify specific falsehoods, but to develop habits of reflection and lateral reading that make them more discerning information consumers over time. Pel pointed to promising nonpartisan models in Canada and elsewhere, while Zommer cautioned that even the best educational interventions will struggle without platforms designed to support rather than undermine informed engagement.
Our fall 2025 Buffett Symposium on youth-led peacebuilding brought together activists, politicians, NGO leaders, and negotiators from across the world to explore how youth are transforming the future of conflict resolution and justice. This conversation brought together Nadia Murad, 2018 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and Northwestern University political science professor Wendy Pearlman for a wide-ranging discussion on survival, justice, and the responsibilities of bearing witness. Drawing on her experience as a survivor of the ISIS genocide of the Yazidi people — during which she lost her mother, six brothers, and other family members, and was herself taken into sexual slavery — Murad reflected on what it has meant to transform personal trauma into advocacy, and on the long road toward accountability for crimes against humanity that the international community continues to fail to prevent. Panelists included: Nadia Murad , human rights activist, author, and founder of Nadia's Initiative , and recipient of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize Wendy Pearlman , Jane Long Professor of Arts & Sciences and Professor of Political Science, Northwestern University Key Takeaways Survivors who share their stories do so at enormous personal cost, and those who document or investigate conflict-related sexual violence have an ethical obligation to treat them with care. Murad described how survivors in displacement camps were repeatedly interviewed without informed consent, had their faces shared against their wishes, and were asked to relive their trauma by multiple interviewers in a single day — experiences that led many women to stop sharing their stories altogether. In response, Murad helped develop the Murad Code, a set of ten principles for anyone documenting rape as a weapon of war, co-created with more than 1,000 survivors. The Code has since been translated into multiple languages and adopted in conflict zones, including Ukraine. Justice is not a complement to peace — it is a precondition for it. Murad described how, after escaping captivity, she deliberately sought an alternative to the cycle of revenge that has long characterized conflict in her region, finding it in international legal accountability. She has since pursued cases against individual perpetrators across multiple countries, as well as a lawsuit against the French cement company Lafarge for funding ISIS operations. While she acknowledged that the number of ISIS members held accountable remains far smaller than the losses her own family has suffered, she emphasized that each case delivers hope to survivors and communities — and that without accountability, minorities in Iraq have little basis to trust they will be protected in the future. In a moment of moral crisis, doing nothing is also a choice. Murad reflected on the family that risked their lives to help her escape, and on the many more who turned fleeing Yazidis over to ISIS. She argued that bravery does not require being a victim — it requires using whatever tools one has, whether education, voice, or passion, to act against injustice rather than look away. On the nature of courage itself, Murad was clear that being brave does not mean being unafraid. She described her own fear as a constant companion throughout her journey — from her captivity, to the decision to go public with her story, to the ongoing work of pursuing justice — and said that what matters is not the absence of fear but the willingness to act in spite of it. She also insisted that bravery takes many forms: those who share their stories publicly are brave, but so are the survivors who carry their trauma privately, protecting themselves and their families in the only way available to them.
Our fall 2025 Buffett Symposium on youth-led peacebuilding brought together activists, politicians, NGO leaders, and negotiators from across the world to explore how youth are transforming the future of conflict resolution and justice. This panel brought together three young peacebuilders whose work spans Belarus, Colombia, and Uganda to explore how the next generation is transforming the theory and practice of peacemaking. Each panelist came to the work through personal experience with conflict, repression, or injustice in their home country, and each has built organizations or movements that center youth leadership as essential — not peripheral — to lasting peace. The conversation examined how young activists break into national-level conversations, build coalitions across lines of difference, and sustain their commitment in the face of setbacks and slow progress. Panelists included: Alana Gebremariam , a Belarusian pro-democracy activist and elected member of the Coordination Council facilitating a democratic transfer of power in Belarus Amos Kiyingi , Founder and National Director of Uganda Unites Cristina Rosero-Arteaga , Senior Legal Adviser for the Center for Reproductive Rights’ Latin America & Caribbean Program Moderator Giavanna Chopra , fourth-year undergraduate student in the School of Education and Social Policy and a Buffett Undergraduate Research Fellow Key Takeaways: Meaningful youth participation in peace processes requires more than representation — it requires ownership. Kiyingi described how Uganda Unites deliberately involved young people from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds in developing the curriculum for its Peace Clubs, rather than delivering a top-down program. Rosero-Arteaga echoed this, tracing how young Colombian feminist lawyers and activists did not simply join the peace process but drove the inclusion of gender mandates into the 2016 peace agreement — a historic first — by building trust with grassroots communities, mobilizing in the streets, and strategically placing themselves inside transitional justice mechanisms. Expanding the scope of what counts as a peace issue is itself an act of peacebuilding. Rosero-Arteaga described how Colombian feminist movements connected reproductive rights to the armed conflict by documenting previously invisible forms of reproductive violence — including forced abortion, forced contraception, and forced pregnancy — across more than 68 civil society reports. By naming these patterns, advocates were able to bring reproductive justice into peace negotiations and eventually into the final report of Colombia's Truth Commission, the first in the world to recognize reproductive violence as a distinct category of gender-based violence warranting comprehensive reparations. Courage in the face of fear and persistence in the face of failure are the defining qualities of effective young peacebuilders. Gebremariam, who was imprisoned for her activism in Belarus, reflected that courage is not the absence of fear but the refusal to be ruled by it — a lesson she described learning concretely in prison when she chose to help a fellow prisoner who had repeatedly betrayed her. Since her release, she has continued to take personal risks in the service of peace, including negotiating with the U.S. State Department and European authorities on behalf of Belarusian political prisoners. Kiyingi offered a complementary vision of resilience, describing peace work as laying bricks in a building you may never see completed, and finding sustenance in small wins, in the stories of young people whose lives have been changed, and in the knowledge that peacebuilders around the world are laying their own bricks alongside you.
Our fall 2025 Buffett Symposium on youth-led peacebuilding brought together activists, politicians, NGO leaders, and negotiators from across the world to explore how youth are transforming the future of conflict resolution and justice. This panel discussion featured a conversation with Claire Hajaj, a specialist in conflict and post-conflict dynamics with experience working on the United Nations Security Council and the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee, on the evolving landscape of peacebuilding in the 21st century. Drawing on her career supporting UN-led negotiations in Myanmar, Lebanon, and Iraq, Hajaj explored how the meaning of peace has shifted — from the optimism of the post-Cold War era to today's fragmented, transnational conflicts shaped by misinformation, digital polarization, and the declining authority of large multilateral institutions. The conversation also examined the distinctive and underutilized role that young people can play in creating the conditions for lasting peace. Panelists included: Claire Hajaj , Executive Director of Inter Mediate and author of Ishmael's Oranges Moderator Liana Liu Ioannides , a second-year undergraduate studying journalism and math, is a leader of student-led speaker events at the Roberta Buffett Institute. Key Takeaways Being "in the room" is not the most powerful position available to young peacebuilders. Hajaj cautioned against the tokenistic inclusion of youth delegations in formal negotiations, arguing that such gestures can function as exclusion dressed up as participation. The greater leverage lies outside the negotiating room — in young people's ability to generate public demand for change, set parameters for what a just resolution should look like, and hold decision-makers accountable in ways that make certain political choices difficult to ignore. Peacemaking requires persistence, humanity, and a willingness to learn from failure. Reflecting on her work at Inter Mediate, Hajaj emphasized that successful peace processes — from Northern Ireland to Colombia to Mozambique — have unfolded over years or decades, and that agreements often emerge from the bones of earlier failures. She also stressed the importance of mediators maintaining genuine empathy for all parties, including leaders who have done terrible things, as trust is the precondition for any progress at the negotiating table. The tools being used to sow conflict are the same tools that could be turned toward peace — and young people are best positioned to make that turn. Hajaj described the current moment as a transition between eras that peacemaking institutions have not yet navigated well, with disinformation and digital organizing now capable of mobilizing violence across borders. She argued that solutions will come not from diplomats but from young inventors — technologists, storytellers, and networkers — who can harness platforms, AI, and the power of narrative to build the demand and legitimacy that political leaders need to take risks for peace.
The Roberta Buffett Institute's 2024–25 international diplomacy series culminated in our spring quarter symposium, Negotiating Peace in a Multipolar World: Lessons Learned , organized with Fundación Acordemos. This two-day event brought together diplomats, negotiators, and academics to discuss the high-profile peace processes of recent decades. Our aim was to draw lessons for future negotiations in a world confronting a crisis of multilateralism. The final panel on Friday, April 4 focused on the challenges of implementing peace agreements and featured: Barney Afako , lawyer and member of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan Kate Fearon , founding member of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition who participated in negotiations leading to the Good Friday Agreement Pavlo Klimkin , Ukraine's former Minister of Foreign Affairs and co-founder of the Centre for National Resilience & Development Abiodun Williams , Professor of the Practice of International Politics at Tufts University and former Senior Vice-President of the Center for Conflict Management at USIP Moderated by Pontus Ohrstedt , Director of Support to Peace Processes at Folke Bernadotte Academy, the Swedish government agency for peace, security and development Watch short video recaps from the symposium on the Roberta Buffett Institute's website >>
The Roberta Buffett Institute's 2024–25 international diplomacy series culminated in our spring quarter symposium, Negotiating Peace in a Multipolar World: Lessons Learned , organized with Fundación Acordemos. This two-day event brought together diplomats, negotiators, and academics to discuss the high-profile peace processes of recent decades. Our aim was to draw lessons for future negotiations in a world confronting a crisis of multilateralism. The penultimate panel on Friday, April 4 focused on actors in multilateral peacemaking and featured: William B. Taylor , Distinguished Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, former Vice President for Europe & Russia at the US Institute of Peace (USIP) and former US ambassador to Ukraine Shoaib Rahim , former Senior Advisor to Afghanistan's State Ministry for Peace Tor Wennesland , the UN's former Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Moderated by Danielle Gilbert , Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University Watch short video recaps from the symposium on the Roberta Buffett Institute's website >>
The Roberta Buffett Institute's 2024–25 international diplomacy series culminated in our spring quarter symposium, Negotiating Peace in a Multipolar World: Lessons Learned , organized with Fundación Acordemos. This two-day event brought together diplomats, negotiators, and academics to discuss the high-profile peace processes of recent decades. Our aim was to draw lessons for future negotiations in a world confronting a crisis of multilateralism. The second panel on Friday, April 4 focused on designing processes for negotiating peace and featured: Barney Afako , lawyer and member of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan Claire Hajaj , Executive Director of Inter Mediate Sergio Jaramillo , President of Fundación Acordemos and Colombia's former High Commissioner for Peace Moderator Daniel Krcmaric , Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University Watch short video recaps from the symposium on the Roberta Buffett Institute's website >>
The Roberta Buffett Institute's 2024–25 international diplomacy series culminated in our spring quarter symposium, Negotiating Peace in a Multipolar World: Lessons Learned , organized with Fundación Acordemos. This two-day event brought together diplomats, negotiators, and academics to discuss the high-profile peace processes of recent decades. Our aim was to draw lessons for future negotiations in a world confronting a crisis of multilateralism. The initial panel on Friday, April 4 focused on conditions of possibility for negotiating peace and featured: Betty Bigombe , Uganda's Special Envoy to the peace process in South Sudan and ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Christopher R. Hill , five-time US ambassador, whose last post was as ambassador to Serbia from 2022–2025 Tor Wennesland , the UN's former Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Moderator Ian C. Kelly , Ambassador (ret.) in Residence at Northwestern University Watch short video recaps from the symposium on the Roberta Buffett Institute's website >>
The Roberta Buffett Institute's 2024–25 international diplomacy series culminated in our spring quarter symposium, Negotiating Peace in a Multipolar World: Lessons Learned , organized with Fundación Acordemos . This two-day event brought together diplomats, negotiators, and academics to discuss the high-profile peace processes of recent decades. Our aim was to draw lessons for future negotiations in a world confronting a crisis of multilateralism. Although peace negotiations are often greeted with relief, they also represent a fork in the road. A badly-crafted agreement may be worse than no agreement at all. Rushed peace deals store up trouble for the future, fueling more intense and widening conflicts. This symposium examined the successes and failures of past processes, analyzed key principles and strategies, and discussed the roles of various actors in achieving lasting and implementable peace agreements. The opening plenary session included: Christopher R. Hill , five-time US ambassador, whose last post was as ambassador to Serbia from 2022–2025 Kate Fearon , founding member of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition who participated in negotiations leading to the Good Friday Agreement Sergio Jaramillo , President of Fundación Acordemos and Colombia's former High Commissioner for Peace Pavlo Klimkin , Ukraine's former Minister of Foreign Affairs and co-founder of the Centre for National Resilience & Development Moderator Ravi Agrawal , Editor-in-Chief of Foreign Policy
Our 2025 spring Buffett Symposium on Negotiating Peace in a Multipolar World: Lessons Learned , organized with Fundación Acordemos , brought together diplomats, negotiators, and academics to discuss the high-profile peace processes of recent decades and draw lessons for future negotiations in a world confronting a crisis of multilateralism. This brief preview of the discussions is pulled from our short recap video of the two-day event. Learn more about the symposium's speakers and program >>
Our 2025 winter Buffett Symposium on AI and Geopolitics convened leading strategists, researchers, and policymakers to discuss the transformative opportunities and profound challenges that AI poses in geopolitics. The event was co-organized by the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, Northwestern Security & AI Lab (NSAIL) , and Insight Centre at University College Cork . The daylong program's final panel discussion focused on the role of international cooperation in advancing the development, regulation, and application of AI through shared expertise, collaborative research, and ethical governance. Through partnerships such as the 2023 US-EU Administrative Arrangement on Artificial Intelligence for the Public Good, scientific and technological cooperation can leverage AI to tackle grand challenges in healthcare, education, disaster management, and public service delivery. Through this agreement, the US and EU aim to share findings and resources with international partners, which is critical to efforts to bridge the digital divide. Panelists included: Daniel Byman , Professor and Director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, and Director of the Warfare, Irregular Threats, and Terrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Juha Heikkilä , Adviser for Artificial Intelligence, European Commission Romain Murenzi , Professor of Physics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and former Rwandan Minister of Education, Science and Technology, and Information Communication Technologies Moderator V.S. Subrahmanian , Buffett Faculty Fellow and Walter P. Murphy Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering, and Director of NSAIL Key Takeaways Unequal access to broadband and electricity, prerequisites for leveraging AI effectively, is a significant barrier to entry for countries in the Global South . Murenzi noted that, during the AI boom in 2023, developing countries were rebuilding their economies and education infrastructure post-COVID-19. International cooperation, through funding programs and partnerships, is essential to ensure technologies are tailored to local contexts and don’t further exacerbate disparities. Expertise and innovation predominantly lie within private corporations, emphasizing the need for public-private partnerships and ethical oversight . The private sector possesses the resources, talent, and computational power necessary to drive innovation, placing them at the forefront of AI advancement. However, this concentration of expertise creates a dependency on private entities for progress, potentially sidelining public interests and societal goals. Effective collaboration between private companies, governments, and academia is necessary to create synergies and build local capacities, particularly in developing nations . Byman explained that university researchers play an important role in developing AI technologies and safety protocols that are beneficial to society but have less value commercially and thus are not likely to be pursued by the profit-driven private sector. Read the symposium synthesis report >>
Our 2025 winter Buffett Symposium on AI and Geopolitics convened leading strategists, researchers, and policymakers to discuss the transformative opportunities and profound challenges that AI poses in geopolitics. The event was co-organized by the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, Northwestern Security & AI Lab (NSAIL) , and Insight Centre at University College Cork . The daylong program's penultimate panel discussion focused on global economic impacts of AI. The economic disparities in AI adoption across regions and industries are influenced by factors such as regulatory environments, infrastructure readiness, and cultural attitudes toward risk. The panel discussed the barriers to entry of developing and deploying use-case specific enterprise AI systems, including operational agility and compliance with regulatory environments, while acknowledging the low-hanging fruit of enhancing white-collar workforce productivity, optimizing operations, and automating customer service. Panelists included: David Bray , Distinguished Fellow and Chair of the Loomis Accelerator with the Alfred Lee Loomis Innovation Council at the non-partisan Henry L. Stimson Center, and former Chief Information Security Officer at the US Federal Communications Commission Johan Harvard , Global AI Advisory Lead at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change in London Sandeep Mehta , Advisory Board Member of the Ethical AI Governance Group, and former Chief Technology Officer at the Hartford Financial Services Group Moderator Daniel W. Linna Jr. , Senior Lecturer and Director of Law and Technology Initiatives at Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law Key Takeaways The sector-specific variability in the return on investment (ROI) of AI reflects the substantial investment in infrastructure, data standardization, and workforce training to make the systems effective. Harvard explained that the ROI calculus is improving AI’s economic incentives for many stakeholders, making it worthwhile for certain sectors, but the upfront effort remains a prohibitive barrier. Rather than expecting quick wins from an out-of-the-box solution, achieving meaningful ROI with AI requires a strategic, long-term approach. While AI offers real productivity gains, the expectations surrounding its transformative power may be over-hyped. AI applications provide tangible, incremental improvements to existing systems and workflows, Mehta noted, but they are not so-called "killer apps.” Mehta reported that, in the finance sector, bullish projections estimate 30 percent productivity gains, but the actual gains are measured at five or six percent. The focus on generative AI has diverted attention and resources from other promising approaches. Unlike deep learning, which requires extensive training on vast datasets, active inference is modeled after how humans learn and make predictions with limited information. Bray noted that active inference may offer more privacy-preserving, energy-efficient, and data-efficient solutions, but has been overshadowed by the sunk costs and focus on generative AI, limiting its exploration and adoption. Read the symposium synthesis report >>
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Observed November 3, 2026. Cached outside the daily freshness window; the positions keep the date they were taken on.
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