by Elizabeth Derby

It’s the first full day of GES and you can feel the excitement in the air. Delegates and staff alike are buzzing around Norris, some frantically planning and plotting while others sit talking, sharing their stories. Everywhere I look people are repping their spanking new t-shirts, flipping through their programs, and sticking laptop stickers to their Macbooks. Eventually the masses of people shuffle into the Louis Room for the first speakers of the day, a panel on “Cross-Sector Collaboration: Natural Allies, New Bridges” featuring Captain Edward Martin, Dr. Carol Pandak, and Greg Toulmin.

Among the panelists, there are a variety of perspectives: Captain Martin, a military officer, Carol Pandak, a manager of the Polio Outreach Program with Rotary International, and Greg Toulmin, the country program coordinator for Ethiopia and Sudan for the World Bank.  The discussion mainly centered around how to deal with conflict, internationally, when there are multiple agents all working towards similar goals, but all fighting for different methods. The end conclusion? Basically, collaboration is key. The only way to be successful is if you can successfully coordinate efforts among different groups (NGOs, governments, military, etc.) on each level. As Carol Pandack pointed out, efforts to eradicate polio may be supported by federal governments, but they can only be successful if work done is on the local level.

Perhaps the statement that resonated most with the other panelists was that said by Greg Toulmin, which was , basically, at the end of the day, We’re all just trying to work ourselves out of a job. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need social entrepreneurs. But, its not a perfect world…and that’s why we have GES.