Ethiopia is a great example. Under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, great development took place, but there have also been real issues of human rights abuse and restrictions of journalists.
I came across this twice, once as president of CIDA when there had been a very bad election in Ethiopia, and then another time as the managing director of the World Economic Forum when we were deciding whether we should do an event in Ethiopia when two Swedish journalists had been put in prison at that time.
I asked the opinion of a very thoughtful Ethiopian Canadian, Bekele Geleta, who is a political refugee from the Meles regime who came to Canada and ended up becoming the global head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. His view was to engage, shed light, and open up the space, so that's what we did.
We had the conversation with Meles. We said we were going to come in, going to be respectful, and going to talk about whatever people wanted to talk about. He said he couldn't imagine an issue not worth discussing, and he was good to his word. Now, did abuses stop the next day? No. But did things move in the right direction? I think yes.
Again, one of the challenges when we're looking at a fragile state is not just judging where it is but where the direction is, and whether there is a way we can be a positive force while recognizing it will not be in the place we would like it to be today, or tomorrow, or next year, but that if we work together, in 30 years there may be great success. If we're involved in stabilizing in the meantime, we're helping people there as well as around the world.
That again is part of the challenge of these things.