Q&A SESSION WITH SECRETARY RICE
In this section:
Q&A Session with Secretary Rice
Q&A Session with Secretary Rice
The following is an edited transcript of the question
and answer session following Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice’s address to USAID employees on Jan. 19 in the Andrew
Mellon Auditorium.
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Susan Fine, director of the Office of Strategic Planning
and Operations, Asia and Near East Bureau, addresses
questions to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at
USAID on Jan 19.
USAID
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QUESTION: … My name is Brant Silvers. I work
for the Africa Bureau in the program office … my question
was a little more specific on how Office of Global AIDS Coordinator
and MCC are going to be under this development, the new structure,
and how that might work.
SECRETARY RICE: It’s a very good question. The
U.S. global AIDS coordinator continues to report directly
to me as Secretary of State. The MCC CEO continues to report,
of course, to the Board of the Millennium Challenge Corporation,
of which I am chair. But what we hope is that through greater
interaction, discussion among these organizations which are
independent and maintain their independent character, that
we can start to get some synergies between what is being done
in the MCC, what is being done in AIDS, and our development
assistance.
Let me give you an example. MCC operates on a very clear
set of indicators and criteria that are developed in legislation
and that are carried out in really a quite rigorous way by
the MCC staff when they are choosing countries that are eligible
and when they are developing compacts with those countries.…
Many times at the MCC Board meetings, people have expressed
the wish that when we’re doing that we can also see what
else would enhance the capability and enhance the effectiveness
of that MCC compact. What if we were looking also to see if
in the same country work that USAID might be able to do in
capacity building would make that compact even more effective?
… What can we do with our USAID funding to enhance that
capability?
So … we think we will get better alignment between
our programs. But those two organizations remain independent.
Their heads remain reporting to me directly. But we do expect
that the kind of guidance that the director for foreign assistance
can give will help us to make sure that we’re using all
of our resources pulling in the same direction.
QUESTION: My name is Laura Wilson and I work with
Legislative Affairs … I read the fact sheet that the
State Department has issued related to the reforms associated
with this announcement … one of the elements that you
stated … is that you’d like to see the role of Foreign
Service Officers expanded to include some sort of implementing
role when it comes to education and programs overseas. And
to me that seems remarkably similar to what the Foreign Service
at USAID does. And you also stated in this statement that
there will be training associated with the kind of role that
these Foreign Service Officers would now be undertaking. I
wonder if you could explain that a little bit—the overlap
that might seem really clear to the folks at AID and maybe
a bit threatening at the same time.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I hope it won’t be threatening
because there’s plenty of work for everybody to do. One
of the reasons that I’ve been anxious to have a strengthened
USAID is that you are our primary delivery mechanism for hands-on
assistance in training people, in education, in democracy
promotion and so forth. And I think we will continue to see
USAID play that role and hopefully play that role in even
a stronger way, in a more coordinated way.
QUESTION: … One of the statements was the development
director/coordinator/assistant secretary will be also overseeing
all foreign assistance at State as well as AID. And I was
wondering how much … of those funds will then be determined
by this director, especially with DRL and IO and all the other—and
the regional bureaus, ESF as well.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, you’ve asked the $64 million
question because we’ve concentrated a lot on what this
will mean for USAID, but this is going to mean a change for
State, too, in the way that we think about the alignment of
the resources. When I spoke earlier to the senior management
at the State Department, I said we were going to have to stop
thinking of resources as “mine” and think of the
resources as “ours.” And we simply have to be able
to put together a coherent picture of how we’re going
to address the needs of a particular country functionally
in terms of what it needs.
QUESTION: My name is Susan Fine. I work in the Asia
and Near East Bureau … there are two things that I would
like to ask … One is with regard to our programs, I appreciate
your sentiment that development and capacity building is important,
not just in the countries that are very critical to our strategic—our
security interests but also those other countries. However,
if you look at the budgets that we have given to those countries,
that’s not going to be apparent to many of the countries
in which we work. It’s going to look like we are placing
a tremendous emphasis on places like Afghanistan and Sudan
and Iraq and not very much emphasis on some of those other
countries. So I guess one question is how do you think that
we can make the case to the Congress and to the American public
to increase resources for development?
And the other thing related to this is our resources for
our operating expenses. I think part of the reason that our
Agency is suffering and has had difficulty in providing the
technical leadership that we used to provide is because we
don’t have the resources to support personnel, particularly
overseas. And I think that it’s wonderful that you’re
going to reallocate State Department diplomats to some of
the countries that—in which we work, but I think that
it will also be important to make sure that we can continue
to have a strong core of foreign—USAID Foreign Service
Officers in those countries. So I’d like to know whether
you would be supportive of that.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, on the second question, it’s
a question Andrew and I have talked a great deal about—the
desire to actually be able to increase our presence in important
places. And by important, I mean places that are emerging,
not just places that we tend to think of as “strategic.”
And I’m perfectly willing and ready to ask for more support
on the operating side….
It is true that we are spending a good deal of our resources
in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, places like that. But the reality
is that unless we do get Afghanistan right and make certain
that it’s never a place from which terrorism can flow
again, unless we get Iraq right and create and help the Iraqis
create in the middle of the Arab world an anchor for a different
kind of Middle East, the truth of the matter is that American
people are going to be fighting terrorists and fearful of
terrorists for a very, very, very long time to come. And I
will absolutely defend the obligation of the Administration
to make certain that we spend the resources to get the big
cases that we’ve undertaken in Afghanistan and Iraq right….
But I think it would be wrong to suggest that we have not
also increased development assistance more broadly; development
assistance in Africa has tripled in this period of time. That
was not the case before this President became President. And
it’s through the Millennium Challenge and it’s through
AIDS help and it’s also through partnering with important
states to help them build capacity. It’s also the case
that we have done a great deal in debt relief, which is an
important element of development system.
So I think we have a fine record in terms of the development
assistance—that is, assistance that is not linked to
the big strategic issues that we all think of when we talk
about Afghanistan or Iraq. And I also think that separating
somehow strategic interests from development is not exactly
the way that I think about it. The truth of the matter is
that we need well-governed states that are democratic and
capable of meeting their people’s needs across the world,
not just in a few places….
QUESTION: … I’m wondering is a follow-on
step to this some type of an umbrella position, which will
incorporate overseas programs that work in development that
also would make sense to rationalize or harmonize based on
your leadership?
SECRETARY RICE: You are right that we—of course,
it’s the government, not just State and USAID are deliverers
of development assistance and foreign assistance. And particularly
when we’re trying to put together a program for a state
to try to make it better governed.
I have talked to a lot of my Cabinet colleagues and everybody
understands that U.S. government resources need to be pulling
in the same direction. And I think that they will look to
our leadership to develop guidelines and to develop strategic
direction about what we’re trying to do in a particular
country, or what we’re trying to do in a particular region,
and how the resources of other departments’ programs
… how all of these resources can come together to have
a coherent plan for a country or for a region that is consistent
with America’s foreign policy goals and I think they
will look to us.
It is true that about 80 percent of the assistance is in
State and USAID, so once we’ve done a better job of coherence
there, I think we will have a base from which to work. But
by all means, we need better coordination across the government.…
QUESTION: My name is Vicki Moore and I’ve recently
returned from serving as the mission director in Uganda. My
question is [about] … the staffing…. I think that
a number of us here are very concerned that USAID not become
just an implementing agency. I think we have a long and very
proud tradition of putting together policies and programs
in a strategic way. And I think many of us are very proud
of the fact that we see ourselves as development professionals
and we see that expertise as hard won through a lot of experience
and studies and things that we have done over a number of
years….
I’d like to know how we can feel confident that our
Agency’s expertise and concern in terms of policymaking
and planning will be a part of this process and a very serious
part of the process.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, not only do you have a long
history of expertise in development and in strategic direction
and planning, but you have done that very well. In some ways,
I think that many times USAID has had a more strategic approach
to the way that it’s dealt with assistance than has the
State Department.… You’ve done one-year plans. You’ve
done five-year plans. The mission directors have been told
that they need to think in longer terms. You did a new fragile
states approach. And so I think it’s absolutely right
that USAID will bring a lot of strength to this process and
this planning office, by the way, will be USAID people and
State people. And I would hope that the strength that USAID
has in this ability to plan, the ability to think strategically,
the development expertise that is there will strengthen what
we do at State as well as what State does being brought to
what USAID does.
But you have to understand that by making the USAID coordinator
the key person here, I think we’re recognizing the critical
function that USAID plays. I think we’re recognizing
the critical expertise that USAID brings to the foreign assistance
and development business. And I think we’re marrying
it with the need to understand better the kind of expertise
that State brings to foreign policy goals and also to goals
about good governance and the like.
QUESTION: My name is Ellen Leddy and I work for the
Latin American Caribbean Bureau. What advice do you have for
Ambassador Tobias as he tries to align the shorter term perspective
of the State Department and the longer term perspective of
USAID?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, first of all, I hope the State
Department doesn’t have a short term perspective. We
can’t afford to. The President has talked about ending
tyranny and having a democratic Middle East and well governed
states in Africa, in Latin America, and Asia and democratic
states. If we have a short term perspective we’re going
to fail. This is a generational struggle that we’re in.
And if the State Department has a short term perspective,
then we better get out of it real fast, because what we’re
obligated to do in our time here, in my time here, the three
years that I will presumably be Secretary of State, hopefully,
although remember I’m still tenured at Stanford. [Laughter.]
The time that we are here we can only do one thing and that’s
lay a foundation for the kind of world that we want to see.
We were confronted on September 11th with the realization
that the kind of balance of power between states, the fact
that big powers no longer really fight each other, was actually
not good enough for our security because this ill-governed,
almost not-at-all governed, state called Afghanistan became
a terrorist haven in a place where women were abused and people
had no freedoms. And that terrorist haven led to the worst
attack on our territory ever.
And when that happened we had to ask ourselves whether we
were going to make a temporary change in the world, maybe
try to make it better in terms of capturing some al-Qaida
and maybe try to make it better in terms of making the United
States more secure through Homeland Security or whether or
not we were going to try to make—lay the foundation for
a more permanent peace. And a more permanent peace comes from
the spread of democratic values, well-governed democratic
states where the consent of the governed is the basis for
governing, where women are full partners in the political
and economic enterprise, where people can educate their children—girls
and boys, where they have reasonable expectations of health
care.…
And so I would hope that the alignment would come not from
Randy Tobias having to somehow push one of the other organizations,
but from a recognition that when the President set our agenda,
he set it on a long term calendar, not a short term.
QUESTION: My name is Noreen O’Meara. I work in
the Donor Coordination Office. And I’m wondering, given
that we do need to use resources more effectively, do you
envision any cost savings and perhaps streamlining of reporting
from the system’s integration that will have to support
knowing what we’re spending in each country and what
we’re achieving in each country?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, look, it would be a fantastic
outcome if we were able to save resources and reinvest those
resources in more programs and in more people and in more
capability to deliver. I think that would be a terrific outcome.
I can’t answer the question because I don’t think
we yet have a system that even tells us about redundancies
and about whether things are pulling in the same direction.
I’m looking at Henrietta Fore down here, the undersecretary
for management. And I know she’s been working with her
USAID colleagues and their management counsel to look at ways
that we can bring together some of our processes and our backroom
support and things that might help us to take advantage of
synergies that might develop.
It’s not the—saving money is not the principal
reason for doing this. The principal reason for doing this—and
I think it will give us a more effective program to do what
we need to do. But my goodness, if we could save American
taxpayers’ dollars to be reinvested in foreign assistance
and in—somebody mentioned more operations so we could
have more people, so our people could be better trained, that
would be a terrific outcome. And I think we have to look for
whether or not we can achieve some of those synergies by looking
more closely at what we’re doing and at better aligning
our priorities.
For the complete transcript of Sec. Rice’s comments,
go to www.usaid.gov
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