Transcript
ZAIN ASHER: Just announced this week, the U.S. is committing hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding to help avert a famine in Somalia. Joining us live now from Washington is Samantha Power who currently serves in the Biden-Harris Administration as the Administrator of USAID. Administrator Power, thank you so much for being with us, especially to talk about such an important story. When you think about what’s happening in Somalia – literally, it is dealing with its worst humanitarian crisis in decades. You’ve got animals dying of thirst, you’ve got women cradling their dying children. Is the U.S. doing enough? I mean technically what’s happening right now is not technically a famine just yet. But is the U.S. doing enough to avert a full blown famine in Somalia in the coming months?
ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Well, first, thanks for drawing attention to the crisis in the Horn and to the dire food circumstances for so many in Somalia. I was actually there a couple months ago. And it is every bit as bleak as you have described it, if not more, particularly for pastoralists, people who have relied on raising livestock for millennia, families that have relied for millennia. And now, with this unprecedented fifth straight season of drought, absolutely no way to get water to animals. So just seeing these animals wasted away there and in northern Kenya, and elsewhere in the Horn, it’s devastating. The U.S. has contributed so far about $1.5 billion in support to ensure that UN agencies on the ground primarily have the ability to reach people, we’ve reached about 4.5 million Somalis. Unfortunately, the U.S. is right now accounting for two thirds of the international appeal, two thirds of the food aid that is needed is being provided by the U.S., which we feel very privileged to be a part of contributing to, but that is not sustainable. We need other countries to step up. Countries in the Gulf, countries in Europe – other large donor countries that when past food crises have hit, the Somali people have always been able to count on. So that’s one of the things that we are working on day in day out.
ZAIN ASHER: And if other countries don’t step up in the way that the U.S. needs them to, what happens?
ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Well, we have, also, the rest of Sub Saharan Africa and other food insecurity to worry about. I was just meeting with the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a major disaster emergency is befalling Kinshasa, because of the flooding there. We’ve seen in Chad, flood take many lives and have made an additional funding announcement to get food and other forms of shelter support to the people of Chad. Needless to say, with the effects of climate change being felt – either with too much water or too little water all around the world – it is really, really important that there be more burden sharing when it comes to humanitarian support. We’re in conversations with Congress to see if we can further supplement our humanitarian assistance budget, commensurate with these needs – humanitarian needs that Putin has made worse, of course, by driving up food prices, by making it so hard to get food out of Ukraine. You know, even though food is now moving through the Black Sea, not nearly at the pace that it was even just two months ago. So again, I think the U.S. is taking a leadership role as the world’s leading humanitarian donor. Other countries are stretched economically, we appreciate that. But this is time to dig deep given the needs.
ZAIN ASHER: I want to talk more broadly about the U.S.-Africa Summit. President Joe Biden says the U.S. is all in on Africa. But how does the U.S. guarantee consistency in terms of U.S.-Africa policy when it sort of seems to change depending on really which administration is in the White House?
ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Well, you can see changes in terms of things like do you have a high-level African leader summit or not? That’s something President Obama kicked off and then skipped an administration, and President Biden has resumed, which is wonderful. But I work at USAID, and I can tell you, we’ve been working in Africa for 61 years. You actually did not see substantial changes to our programming under the last administration. There’s bipartisan support for even transition to renewable energies. The initiative you might have heard of called Power Africa has brought first time electricity to about 165 million Africans, which is incredibly important. The initiative President Biden announced yesterday, which will electrify 10,000 health clinics across Africa – that’s the kind of initiative that will be sustained irrespective of who’s up or who’s down in Washington. So, again, rhetoric changes. The high level embrace – certainly we didn’t see in the previous administration – and this kind of frontal commitment from President Biden. But, when it comes to food security assistance, when it comes to HIV/AIDS, malaria, you know, these diseases that have taken so many lives needlessly in Africa. And when it comes to what Africa most wants, which is partnership, and catalytic economic growth, trade, investment, I think that’s something that is in the interests of all Americans and all Africans.
ZAIN ASHER: I mean a lot of people have talked about this idea that the U.S. is certainly late to the table when it comes to – I don’t know if the right word is competing, but certainly countering China’s influence on the continent. But, a lot of people have complained on the continent about the overreliance on China leading to African nations being in a debt trap. How can the U.S. guarantee, and how can the U.S. prove that it will be a much better partner than China has been in the past?
ADMINISTRATOR POWER: I think our track record is, again, decades old – and not just a decade old. It is not an extractive relationship that we have with countries on the continent. Quite the contrary. We’re interested, for example, at USAID, in working ourselves out of jobs, you know, doing away with aid and ending up in a situation where you see American companies and private investors, bringing resources to bear. Where, in fact, African goods are produced there, but exported to U.S. markets and beyond. So, I think it’s this spirit of partnership, really, that has been defining of the U.S. relationship with so many African countries over time. Wanting to see Africa be energy independent, wanting to see, for example, African countries no longer dependent on fertilizer from Russia, but able to produce its own fertilizer, as Morocco does. And as USAID is working, for example, in Tanzania to spearhead a fertilizer manufacturing initiative there. So, I think, you know, in my conversations with African leaders these last days, and in my time at USAID, there is broad awareness of the difference in what a partnership with the United States constitutes.
ZAIN ASHER: Alright, Administrator Power thank you so much for being with us.
ADMINISTRATOR POWER: Thank you.