Lagos is the most populous city on the continent of Africa, at 21 million people. With no governmental social services provided, and the poverty and pollution that is a natural byproduct of such density and neglect, it is a place of extreme polarization. The oil industry makes a few people extraordinarily rich and the rest live in modest means or in relative or extreme poverty.

What has emerged is an entrepreneurial spirit that permeates the atmosphere; small retail stalls and stands proliferate across the city, selling everything from fruit to funeral services to fried meats. It is a vibrant, energetic city, with comfort and abject poverty absolutely cheek-to-jowl. Small local buses careen in and out of traffic, stopping to drop off passengers in the street or on the curbs, even as large expensive limousines push their way through the never ending traffic snarls. 

Seven Americans joined others from twenty-five countries at a Dialogue on Just Governance in the breathtakingly beautiful Initiatives of Change Center at Panchgani, India. This incredibly diverse group included a Cabinet Secretary to the Government of South Sudan, twenty-two from Sri Lanka, a Dean from Michigan State University, a British journalist writing on the Kurdish question, as well as environmental activists and senior civil servants. Together they grappled with some of the major global issues. They also quickly became one community - through sharing practical tasks and by spending times of quiet reflection in the exquisite outdoor surroundings. One marvels how a forest has grown where once only one tree stood at the time the center was opened nearly 50 years ago. 

Highlights of the conference include: