New York, New York
Transcript
MODERATOR: Well, hello, and welcome to the New York Foreign Press Center, and welcome to the journalists who are joining us virtually. Our distinguished briefer today is Isobel Coleman, who serves as the Deputy Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development.
My name is Doris Robinson, and I am the briefing moderator. As a reminder, this briefing is on the record. We will post a transcript later today on our website at fpc.state.gov. After Deputy Administrator Coleman’s opening remarks, I will return and open the floor for questions. And with that, it’s a pleasure to turn it over to you, Deputy Administrator.
DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR ISOBEL COLEMAN: Thank you, Doris. Thank you for those joining in person and those virtually. It’s a pleasure to be back in New York, back at USUN where I served as one of the U.S. ambassadors under the Obama Administration.
Here for UNGA, focused on a whole range of different issues, including a kickoff yesterday on the SDGs. I was in the General Assembly and listened to the many statements urging the world to double down on meeting the SDGs. There’s no surprise here – we are lagging in meeting the goals, the Sustainable Development Goals, by 2030. We’re at a little beyond a midway point, and we have not made nearly the progress that we should make. USAID is very committed to the full range of SDGs, and much of our work is focused around meeting the SDGs and helping our partner countries work towards progress for the SDGs.
I’ve had a couple of very packed days here, working on everything from food security to an anti-corruption event to a democracy event, and really spanning the globe from a meeting with leaders from Pacific Islands earlier today, African leaders, European leaders, really so many different parts of the world. But we know that the challenges are enormous here at the UN. There’s a lot of talk about what needs to happen in the world.
I can tell you that President Biden is the only member of the permanent members of the Security Council who is here today, and that is really a commitment and a statement of the commitment by the United States to the UN, to addressing the Sustainable Development Goals and deepening our alliances, our partnerships around the world, and deepening our commitment to those countries that are most in need – facing the impacts of – the lingering impacts of the COVID pandemic, the supply chain disruptions that have happened, the food security challenges that have stemmed not only from the pandemic but also from Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine, and the disruptions to the global food supply from that, and of course, climate change.
And the effects of all of this really fall most heavily on the most vulnerable countries. That’s why I am very pleased to announce today that USAID is making a $247 million additional commitment to humanitarian assistance for 10 Sub-Saharan African countries. Many of them are among the most vulnerable, the poorest in the world. And it is just another indication of how much we believe in really channeling our resources to those most in need, to working with partner countries around the world to invest in both resiliency, and to meeting the urgent needs of the moment from a humanitarian perspective for those that are most vulnerable.
So with that, I’ll wrap up my opening comments and I’m happy to take your questions. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Wonderful. And please wait until I call on you to ask your question, and when I call on you, please state your name and media outlet. And to the journalists online, you can raise your virtual hand to ask the question. So let’s start in the room. Let’s start here with Afghan —
QUESTION: Thank you so much. Aref Yaqubi from Afghanistan International. So the United States is one of the largest humanitarian supporters of Afghan people, but there are news and concerns that Taliban get some of the aids that has been sent to Afghanistan by USAID and other organization. So I would like to ask you, what is your explanation on that? And my second part of the question is that, how the Taliban have intervened in the structure of sending aids to locals across the country? Thank you.
DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR COLEMAN: Thank you for your question. Yes, to underscore what you just said, the United States is the largest – single largest – donor to Afghanistan and remains so. And we are deeply committed to the Afghan people. The concerns that you are raising about how we are delivering aid in Afghanistan – we go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that the aid that we are providing goes directly to the Afghan people. We do not provide assistance to the Taliban. And we work closely with our partners to ensure that the support that we’re providing is going to the intended beneficiaries.
We have had some challenges on that – we’ve had some aid interference by members of the Taliban. But in those instances, we have explained how we operate and that our delivery of aid has to be directly to beneficiaries. And if we’ve not been able to achieve that, we have paused our aid in those particular cases. So we did run into a problem in Ghor province, for example. We suspended our aid, but we have been able to work through with local authorities to ensure that the aid is now going to – directly to beneficiaries, and we have been able to restart our aid. But the issue that you raise on aid interference, I think, is one that we have to remain vigilant and really explain and explain again that our aid is intended to benefit the Afghan people and only the Afghan people in Afghanistan. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you. Let’s go to Ukraine.
QUESTION: Oh, thank you. Dmytro Anopchenko, Ukrainian television correspondent. Ma’am, you mentioned the food security, and you know every Ukrainian, everyone from my audience, is concerned about the future of the Black Sea grain deal. Couple of days ago, Jake Sullivan told – and I will quote – that “We don’t see an immediate pathway back to this, but we will continue to press on them.” It means pressing on Russia. But even if there is no immediate pathway, maybe it’s just a roadmap. So could you just describe some steps which might be the part of this roadmap for returning to the grain deal?
DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR COLEMAN: Thank you, Dmytro, for that question. You are raising what is truly one of the great challenges of our time right now, which is that Russia has invaded Ukraine and really disrupted the grain exports from one of the world’s most important breadbaskets, Ukraine. And prior to the war, 97 percent of grain exports, agricultural bulk exports from Ukraine, exited the country through the Black Sea. And by Russia leaving the Black Sea Grain Initiative and effectively halting exports from the Black Sea, and moreover continuing to attack and destroy critical export – agricultural export infrastructure all along the Black Sea, this is nothing less than weaponizing food. And that is what Russia is doing.
Now, unfortunately, I do share our National Security Advisor’s perspective that there’s no clear path back, but we do encourage the countries of the world that are quite dependent on food from Ukraine to continue to push for re-opening of the Black Sea Grain Initiative or a re-institutionalizing of that, and push Russia to go back into the deal. And we applaud the UN’s efforts to lead on this issue. I know that it has been a topic for the secretary-general. We know that Türkiye has played a helpful role.
So is there an actual roadmap that I can lay out for you of a step-by-step of how this will work? No. A number of concessions have been offered along the way to the Russians, which they have rejected, and I think it’s really beholden on the big food importers in the world – and that includes China; that includes many countries in Africa – to continue to push on Russia to go back into the Black Sea Grain Initiative. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you. Let’s go here.
QUESTION: Manik Mehta. I hope you remember me.
DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR COLEMAN: Yes, I do. Nice to see you.
QUESTION: You wrote that excellent book some years ago when you were at the CFR, and I’ll connect that with a question raised earlier about Afghanistan, but I would focus on the plight of women over there. How do you see that?
And secondly, China has just appointed an ambassador to Kabul. It’s not just a de facto recognition, but a de jure recognition of the Taliban regime.
Thirdly, which is again related to the two questions, India has produced – is generating a lot of crop known as millet. I’m sure you’re familiar with that. And they are in a position to supply the world. They say that it’s a solution to the food insecurity. Would that be a viable proposition?
DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR COLEMAN: Well, thank you for your questions. I will start with Afghanistan and your question about women and girls in Afghanistan. And it is, I would say, one of the most unfortunate elements of the Taliban has been the reprehensible edicts that they have put in place really prohibiting girls to attend school beyond primary school. So this is an issue that we at USAID feel very strongly about. We know that Afghanistan will not be a stable and prosperous country if it does not invest in its full population and does not realize the potential of its full population, including women and girls. It is – there is no amount of aid and assistance that will be able to compensate for policies that really set the country backwards by prohibiting girls and – to achieve their full potential by going to school.
So we will continue to do what we can to educate women and girls both inside Afghanistan, Afghan women and girls inside the country and outside the country. But we do call upon the Taliban to reverse these really self-defeating edicts that they have imposed which, when you look at polling, are quite unpopular in many parts of the country itself. In terms of the food security —
QUESTION: China’s ambassador to —
DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR COLEMAN: Oh, China’s – well, I can’t speak for China’s foreign policy, but I can tell you that, from a values perspective, it is not a step that we would be taking or that we will be taking anytime soon with respect to be engaging in that way.
With respect to food security, I think there are many different elements of improving food security around the world. Millet from India could be one of them. We are – we, USAID – we are investing heavily in increasing agricultural productivity in Africa, which has the fastest-growing population in the world and the most arable land that is not being used currently for food production. So increasing the productivity of land that is being used and really helping African agribusinesses, smallholder farmers who produce the majority of food in Africa to increase their ability to produce more.
So I think there are many different elements that will help improve food security over time, but again, the biggest blow to global food security right now has been Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
MODERATOR: Thank you for that. Let’s take our next question online. Let’s go to Pearl Matibe. Pearl, please unmute yourself and introduce yourself to our briefer.
QUESTION: Thank you so much for taking my question today, and I appreciate your availability. So I’d like to take you back in time a little bit, and hopefully you would agree with me that we do learn from history. You – in your opening remarks you alluded to U.S. leadership, and that’s what I’d like to address my question to you today.
So, Ambassador, back in 2019, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe suffered significantly from cyclones Idai and Kenneth, and calls for humanitarian assistance fell far short of the need. So today, the victims of their families live with long-term loss and trauma. What is your assessment of what’s different today in U.S. leadership, in the last four years? What does U.S. leadership – why does U.S. leadership matter today differently in your view, Ambassador? I’d appreciate if you could help our audiences understand this aspect.
And not that I’m suggesting that USAID should in the future sort of go out of business, but I’m sure that millions – in fact, billions – of Africans would like to be self-resistant and self-sustaining. So how far away are we from USAID helping Africans so that we won’t need USAID anymore? How long away are we from this – from that trajectory? If you can allude to that I’d appreciate it. But U.S. leadership at the top first. Thanks.
DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR COLEMAN: Thank you, Pearl, for this – for this question. What I can tell you is that President [Joe] Biden has prioritized re-energizing our relationships on the continent of Africa. He has hosted several, now, African leaders summits and we have at USAID, in addition, really increased our support and funding for a whole myriad of different investments on the continent of Africa.
Pearl, I would see – I’d like to see nothing more than USAID to go out of business, to no longer be needed in the world. But we are far away from that. We have seen so many natural disasters and calamities around the world just in the last couple of weeks – the earthquake in Morocco, the awful situation with the floods in Libya, and the amount of loss of life and destruction of property. You’re referring to the awful cyclones that affected, as you said, Malawi and Mozambique and Zimbabwe. And I was just in Malawi, and yes, the effects of that are still being felt, and it is, again, a reason why USAID is doubling down on our investments – to make people more resilient in the face of climate change, to provide more early warning systems so people can take prophylactic measures as a storm is bearing down, but also to really invest in the aftermath in more resilient systems and to help people build back better, essentially.
So in terms of U.S. leadership, I think you can see from President Biden’s leadership that he’s here at UNGA. Again, I mentioned at the top he’s the only one of the P5 that made the – made the commitment to be here. He’s meeting with many, many different leaders across the globe, and including many African leaders and heads of state. And I think this is just another reminder of the importance that we put on our relationships, and it’s not just humanitarian assistance. USAID, of course, we are the primary agency for the U.S. Government responsible for humanitarian assistance, but we do so much more. It’s really about investing in the people, in their health, in their education, in their own agency for them to be able to take the steps to be more independent. It’s about improving and expanding our trade relationships.
Just this morning, I was with a whole group of investors talking about Prosper Africa, which is our flagship U.S. whole-of-government approach to increasing trade and investment on the continent of Africa. I met with fund managers and investors downtown earlier today, and the talk was all about ways that we can help increase investment, increase jobs, increase trade to make Africa much more self-sufficient, as you said.
Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you for that. We have time for two more questions. I will take – the first question is a submitted question. It’s from Mohamed Maher from Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper, Egypt. He asks, “Given the increasing impacts of climate change globally, what are the U.S. Government’s plans to assist countries like Libya that might face similar natural disasters in the future? Are there specific sectors or areas in Libya that the U.S. is focusing its aid on, such as infrastructure, health care, education, et cetera, following the hurricane’s devastation?”
DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR COLEMAN: Thank you. Thank you for that question. So let me just start narrow with Libya. Yesterday, I announced that the U.S. Government has – is providing an additional $10 million for a response in Libya, which brings our total to $12 million. Now, we know that the needs are much greater than that, but this money we hope will really help the Libyan people in the immediate aftermath of this calamity that has occurred. The money will go towards immediate shelter needs, water, sanitation, and health needs, and also some immediate food security needs too. The rebuilding, of course, will require much, much more than that, and it will really require private sector investment too.
But let me expand a little larger now and talk about the broader question about climate resiliency in the face of a constant stream of – as we see climate disasters, and it really is about two things that we’re doing. Of course, one is mitigation. We’re really working with countries to much more rapidly turn to clean energy, and that includes in North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, and around the world, and to take the steps to really pull more and more carbon out of the environment. But the other thing is adaptation, and it’s investing in resiliency and early warning systems, it’s stress-testing infrastructure so that they can – dams and buildings and ports and other things can withstand the increased pressures.
It’s also investing in food security, as we’ve talked about – so providing farmers with more resilient farming methods, drought-resistant seeds. We – USAID – we put hundreds of millions of dollars a year into research on the most advanced seeds so that farmers can have the latest in that technology to be able to grow crops that are more pest-resistant and drought-resistant to be able to respond to a changing environment around them. So thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you. So we have time for one final question. Let’s see if there’s someone who didn’t get a chance to ask a question first.
QUESTION: I have – sorry. Thank you. I have a follow-up question. So you mentioned that —
MODERATOR: Please, your name.
QUESTION: Oh, I’m sorry. Aref Yaqubi from Afghanistan International TV. So you mentioned that there was a challenge regarding to the U.S. aids for Afghan people. Can you please give us some details, like which kind of challenges, if Taliban intervened? Like in which way, which part of the country? Was it in the strategic level, was it in some small areas?
And my second part of this question – sorry – is that there are reports that Taliban, they didn’t allow these aids to go to some certain areas that people like – group like Hazaras and other minorities, and Taliban just navigated these aids all to areas that they have more sympathizers and so on and so forth, even their own family members. And there are reports that they use some of these aids and many – and abuse women and torture human rights activists in Afghanistan.
DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR COLEMAN: As I said earlier in response to a similar version of this question, we do take every precaution that we can to ensure that our aid is going to the people who need it most. The most important way we do that is to ensure that our partners who are on the ground delivering the aid control the targeting of beneficiaries. And if that is not the case, then we have been prepared and we have done a pause in our aid delivery. It has – the problems that we have experienced I would not say have been at a strategic level. They have been more at a local level, and we have worked through our partners to ensure that our aid is being delivered in accordance with humanitarian principle and that it is reaching those most in need.
I have acknowledged that we are aware of some incidents of interference in aid delivery, but again, we have halted delivery in those cases and worked through it, and we continue to make it absolutely clear that our aid cannot be delivered unless it is in accordance with independent targeting and humanitarian principle. Thank you.
MODERATOR: Thank you. I’m going to throw it back to the Deputy Administrator for closing remarks.
DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR COLEMAN: Well, I would just close by saying, again, I really appreciate you all coming here. These are important topics that we’re talking about. Climate change, global food security, global health, humanitarian assistance to some of the most vulnerable countries in the world – these are things that the United States government cares deeply about. It is the agenda of USAID, and I really appreciate the opportunity to speak here with all of you. Thank you.
MODERATOR: This concludes today’s briefing. Thank you.
DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR COLEMAN: Thank you.