The United States has struggled to implement a coherent foreign policy toward sub-Saharan Africa even as strategic interests in the region have grown. Addressing issues of national security, development, trade, human rights, environment and natural resources requires stable, dependable and well-governed regional partners. However, corruption, poor governance, conflict, environmental degradation, widespread poverty and malnutrition, and HIV/AIDS continue to bring untold hardship to a large majority of the region's 800 million inhabitants and undermine core U.S. interests in democracy and development. The Council on Foreign Relations Africa Studies Program Roundtable Series on U.S. Strategic African Partners seeks to foster discussion about how the United States can play a positive role in the region by strengthening the capacity of states to provide for their people and working with other African democracies on interests of mutual concern. The Africa Program has a special focus on Nigeria and South Africa because of their size and strategic importance.

Conflict in the Middle East has been near the top of the American foreign policy agenda for a half century. Through discussions with academic experts and especially with current and former government officials, this roundtable series aims to inform the debate surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as other challenges facing the region. These roundtables discuss developments in the region and the goals and impact of U.S. actions, with an eye to deepening understanding of the Middle East and analyzing how to make U.S. foreign policy more effective.

The UN Roundtable meeting series seeks to organize high-level discussions with senior UN officials, including officials from member states and regional organizations, on timely issues related to conflict prevention, peacekeeping, and international security. A core group of selected invitees from member state governments, the private sector, and nongovernmental communities will participate in these discussions. The goal of these not-for-attribution meetings is to raise awareness of the role of the UN in addressing critical issues of peace and security. The UN Roundtable meeting series is cosponsored by the Center for Preventive Action and the Program on International Institutions and Global Governance.

The Asia and the World roundtable series examines the global implications of the rise of Asian power. For a thousand years, Asia was the engine of the global economy, a locus of science and innovation, a center of ideas and intellectual ferment, and the nexus of global power. After a long hiatus, Asia's major powers have now reemerged on the global stage, but their interaction with one another, and with the United States, on important issues and challenges is unsettled and evolving. Speakers and participants analyze the reemergence of China and India as global players, the changing role of Japan on the international stage, and efforts to reshape the international architecture to accommodate the rise of China and India, in particular. Sessions also consider the ways in which greater involvement in the world, not just their immediate neighborhood, is changing the strategic, economic, and political calculations of major countries in East, Central, and South Asia. Meetings look at the tensions, opportunities, and constraints that will determine whether and how the United States can forge partnerships with major Asian powers on issues of global scope. Other sessions may examine timely issues that arise in Central Asia, such as connections to the international oil and gas market, international institutions, and the global economy.

This monthly meeting series seeks to organize focused discussions on plausible short to medium term contingencies that could seriously threaten U.S. interests. Contingency meeting topics will range from specific states or regions of concern to more thematic issues and will draw on the expertise of government and nongovernment experts. The goal of the meeting series is not only to raise awareness of U.S. government officials and the expert community to potential crises but also to generate practical policy options to lessen the likelihood of the contingency and to reduce the negative consequences should it occur. A summary memo of the resulting recommendations will be distributed to participants and important policymakers.

This series is made possible by the generous support of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

This roundtable series is made possible by the generous support of the Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.

The Women and Foreign Policy program is a major component of CFR's Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initiative. The objective of the Women and Foreign Policy program is to bring the status of women firmly into the mainstream foreign policy debate. Thanks in part to its efforts, there is now broad understanding of the importance of women's empowerment to a host of development, health, security, and other global priorities.

The program's current areas of focus include:

• Improving maternal health in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
• U.S. leadership in international reproductive health and family planning.
• The role of technology and private sector resources in empowering women economically.

Please see below for relevant publications:

Taking place primarily in Washington, DC, during the 2008-2009 programming year, this series examines the international law ramifications of the use of force and attendant foreign policy concerns.

The Squam Lake Working Group on Financial Regulation is a nonpartisan, nonaffiliated group of fifteen academics who have come together to offer guidance on the reform of financial regulation.

The group first convened in fall 2008, amid the deepening capital markets crisis. Although informed by this crisis—its events and the ongoing policy responses—the group is intentionally focused on longer-term issues. It aspires to help guide reform of capital markets—their structure, function, and regulation. This guidance is based on the group’s collective academic, private sector, and public policy experience.

To achieve its goal, the group is developing a set of principles (along with their implications) that are aimed at different parts of the financial system: at individual firms, at financial firms collectively, and at the linkages that connect financial firms to the broader economy.

• David Scharfstein withdrew from the group when he accepted a position at the Treasury Department in September 2009.
• Hyun Song Shin withdrew from the group in January 2010 to serve as chief adviser on international economics to South Korean president Lee Myung-bak.